Animalia > Chordata > Tetraodontiformes > Balistidae > Melichthys > Melichthys niger

Melichthys niger (Pigger; Niggerfish; Niger head; Blackfish; Black triggerfish; Black oldwife; Black durgon; Black durgeon)

Synonyms:
Language: Afrikaans; Carolinian; Creole, French; Creole, Portuguese; Danish; French; Fw; Fwâi; German; Hawaiian; Japanese; Kiribati; Mahl; Malay; Malayalam; Mandarin Chinese; Other; Papiamento; Polish; Portuguese; Samoan; Spanish; Tuamotuan; Visayan

Wikipedia Abstract

The black triggerfish or black durgon (Melichthys niger), called Humuhumu'ele'ele in Hawaiian, is a blimp-shaped triggerfish with bright white lines running along its dorsal and anal fins. From a distance, it appears to be completely black. However, upon closer inspection with good lighting, one can see that it is actually mottled dark-blue/green coloration often with orange toward the front of the head. Black durgons are capable of changing color based on their surroundings.
View Wikipedia Record: Melichthys niger

Protected Areas

Prey / Diet

Predators

Carcharhinus perezii (Caribbean reef shark)[1]
Lutjanus jocu (Snuggletooth snapper)[1]
Rhizoprionodon porosus (Snook shark)[1]
Seriola dumerili (Yellow tail)[1]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Hysterothylacium melichthysi[2]
Neobenedenia melleni[2]

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 2Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0