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Banana Fusilier
Pterocaesio pisang (Bleeker, 1853)
Banana Fusiliers at a depth of 18 m, 'Pixies Pinnacle', Ribbon Reef #10, Great Barrier Reef off Cooktown, Queensland, June 2002. Photo: Erik Schlögl. View larger image.
The Banana Fusilier is slender fish with small scales and a strongly forked caudal fin. The body is dull pinkish or greenish-blue and the caudal fin has reddish tips. There are no stripes along the sides of the body.
It grows to 21 cm in length.
The Banana Fusilier is a schooling species that usually occurs near coral reefs in tropical marine waters of the Indo-West Pacific.
Very few specimens of this species are registered in Australian museums, and little is known of its distributional range in Australian waters.
The Banana Fusilier looks similar to the Goldband Fusilier Pterocaesio chrysozona. The easiest way to tell them apart is the presence of a yellow stripe along the side of the body of the Goldband Fusilier.
Related links
- Black-tipped Fusilier fact sheet
- View the Fusiliers list
Further reading
- Allen, G.R. 1997. Marine Fishes of Tropical Australia and South-east Asia. Western Australian Museum. Pp. 292.
- Carpenter, K. E. 1987. Revision of the Indo-Pacific fish family Caesionidae (Lutjanoidea), with descriptions of five new species. Indo-Pacific Fishes. 15: 1-56.
- Carpenter, K.E. 1988. FAO species catalog. Fusiliers of the World. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of caesionid species known to date. FAO Fisheries Synopsis. 125: i-iv + 1-75.
- Carpenter, K. E. 2001. Caesionidae. in Carpenter, K.E. & V.H. Niem (Eds). FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes. The Living Marine Resources of the Western Central Pacific. Volume 5. Bony fishes part 3 (Menidae to Pomacentridae). FAO, Rome. Pp. iii-iv, 2791-3379.
- Myers, R.F. 1999. Micronesian Reef Fishes. Coral Graphics. Pp. 330.
