Name of animal-plant: Scrawled cowfish

Species name: Acanthostracion quadricornis

The scrawled cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis, belongs to the Ostraciidae family and is closely related to boxfish and trunkfish. They range in size from 8-15 inches, with a maximum length of 18 inches, and can be found at depths between 6 and 80 feet. It is common to occasional in Florida and Bahamas; occasional to uncommon in the Caribbean. It may occur in the Gulf of Mexico, north to Massachusetts, Bermuda and south to Brazil in tropical and temperate waters.

It has distinctive features such as a scrawled pattern of bluish markings covering its body; a blue line runs from snout to anal fin and it has a pair of sharp spines above each eye, giving the name “cowfish” because they resemble the horns of a cow. This latter point distinguishes cowfish from trunkfish. Overall it is colored blue-green to yellow cast. However, it may darken, pale and change color. Significantly it has two sharp spines in front of anal fin. Pelvic fins and spiny dorsal fin are not found on the cowfish. Almost always there will be dark, blotchy spots along the body, and three to four horizontal lines on the cheek. They have usually less than fifteen teeth in each jaw.

Animal type: FISH

A fish is any member of a group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a sister group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups. Tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods (i.e., the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals which all descended from within the same ancestry). Because in this manner the term “fish” is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces (also ichthyes) is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification.

Subcategory: fish

 

Fact:

All animals and plants are given a species name based on a technical term in biological taxnomy. The species name consists of two words and is based on Latin.

The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs and  the second part identifies the species within the genus. In this animals case it is: Acanthostracion quadricornis