Cheilodactylus is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the familyCheilodactylidae, known as morwongs, although this name is not unique to this family. They are found in the temperate waters of the southern hemisphere and in the North Pacific Ocean.
The traditional delimitation of the families Cheilodactlidae and Latridae is based on morphological differences, but the reliability of these differences has been called into doubt, and a phylogenetic analyses and genetics have not supported this arrangement. This has led to some authorities suggesting that the majority of species in Cheilodactylidae should be placed in Latridae.[2][3] A result of this rearrangement is that the only species which would remain in Cheilodactylidae are Cheilodactylus fasciatus and C. pixi from southern Africa.[2] This is because these analyses resolved the genus Cheilodactylusaspolyphyletic.[2][4] These studies appear to show that most of the species in Cheilodactylussensu lato instead apparently to belong in several different genera and are not even members of the same family, but how many and their exact delimitation is not clear at present.[2][5][6] The outlier species have been assigned to Chirodactylus, Goniistius, Morwong and Pseudogoniistius, but DNA and morphologic analyses found those species to be nested within Latridae and more derived than the kelpfish, marblefish and the Cheilodactylus type species C. fasciatus.[6][4][2]
The name of the genus is a compound of cheilos meaning “lip”, a reference to the thick, fleshy lips of the adults, and daktylos which means “finger”, a reference to the elongated lower rays on the pectoral fins.[7]
The genus Cheilodactylussensu lato includes sixteen species, this list shows the genera they have been assigned to under the proposed revised taxonomy:[1][8]
^ abcdeChristopher P. Burridge and Adam J. Smolenski (2004). "Molecular phylogeny of the Cheilodactylidae and Latridae (Perciformes: Cirrhitoidea) with notes on taxonomy and biogeography". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 30: 118–127. doi:10.1016/S1055-7903(03)00157-X.
^John E. Randall (2007). Reef and Shore Fishes of the Hawaiian Islands. ISBN1-929054-03-3.
^ abC. P. Burridge and R.W.G. White (2000). "Molecular phylogeny of the antitropical subgenus Goniistius (Perciformes: Cheilodactylidae: Cheilodactylus): evidence for multiple transequatorial divergences and non-monophyly". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 70: 435–458. doi:10.1006/bijl.1999.0413.
^ abLudt, W.B.; Burridge, C.P. & Chakrabarty, P. (2019). "A taxonomic revision of Cheilodactylidae and Latridae (Centrarchiformes: Cirrhitoidei) using morphological and genomic characters". Zootaxa. 585 (1). doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4585.1.7.
