Sidespotted Perchlet, Chelidoperca pleurospilus (Günther 1880)

Summary:

A perchlet with a row of about five dark elongate blotches (blotches almost continuous in small specimens) from behind the head, along the mid-side to the caudal-fin base.

Cite this page as:

Bray, D.J. 2025, Chelidoperca pleurospilus in Fishes of Australia, accessed 08 Jul 2026, https://fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/5489

Sidespotted Perchlet, Chelidoperca pleurospilus (Günther 1880)

More Info

Distribution	Northwest of Shark Bay, Western Australia, to north of Melville Island, Northern Territory, and southeast of Swains Reefs, Great Barrier Reef, to east of Double Island Point, Queensland. Elsewhere the species occurs in the Indo-West Pacific: Red Sea and Madagascar, to the Philippines and southern Japan.
Features	Pectoral fin 14-16; Lateral-line, pored scales 40-43; Scale rows in longitudinal series 42-47; Scale rows between lateral line and base of 6th dorsal-fin spine 4 (3 full-sized scales plus 1 half-sized); interorbital scales reaching level of mid-orbit, not extending beyond anterior margin of orbit; scales on ventral surface of lower jaw restricted to the angular, not extending anteriorly onto dentary; posterior tip of upper caudal-fin lobe slightly elongate with rounded or pointed contour, that of lower lobe not elongate, with rounded or truncate contour.
Etymology	The specific name is from the Greek pleuro- (= side) and spilos (= spot), in reference to the row of 4-5 oblong black spots along the side.
Species Citation	Centropristis pleurospilus Günther 1880, Report on the shore fishes procured during the voyage of H. M. S. Challenger in the years 1873-1876 1(6): 37, Pl. 16 (fig. D). Type locality: Kai Islands, Challenger station 192, Indonesia, Banda Sea, depth 129 fathoms.
Author	Bray, D.J. 2025
Resources	Atlas of Living Australia Australian Faunal Directory Catalog of Fishes

Sidespotted Perchlet, Chelidoperca pleurospilus (Günther 1880)

References

Günther, A. 1880. Report on the shore fishes procured during the voyage of H.M.S Challenger, in the years 1872–1876. Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger 1873–1876, Zoology 1(6): 1-82 pls 1-32

Heemstra, P.C. & Randall, J.E. 1999. Family Serranidae. pp. 2442-2548 in Carpenter, K.E. & Niem, T.H. (eds). The Living Marine Resources of the Western Central Pacific. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fisheries Purposes. Rome : FAO Vol. 4 pp. 2069-2790.

Larson, H.K., Williams, R.S. & Hammer, M.P. 2013. An annotated checklist of the fishes of the Northern Territory, Australia. Zootaxa 3696(1): 1-293

Lee, S.-H., Lee, M.-Y., Matsunuma, M. & Chen, W.-J. 2019. Exploring the phylogeny and species diversity of Chelidoperca (Teleostei: Serranidae) from the Western Pacific Ocean by an integrated approach in systematics, with descriptions of three new species and a redescription of C. lecromi Fourmanoir, 1982. Frontiers of Marine Science 6(465): 1-26. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00465, open access

Matsunuma, M. & Motomura, H. 2016. Chelidoperca stella, a new species of perchlet (Perciformes: Serranidae) from the Andaman Sea, eastern Indian Ocean. Zootaxa 4092(3): 388-400. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4092.3.4

Matsunuma, M., Yamakawa, T. & Williams, J.T. 2017. Chelidoperca tosaensis, a new species of perchlet (Serranidae) from Japan and the Philippines, with geographic range extension of C. stella to the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Ichthyological Research 65(2): 210-230 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-017-0604-5

Williams, J.T. & Carpenter, K.E. 2015. A new fish species of the subfamily Serraninae (Perciformes, Serranidae) from the Philippines. Zootaxa 3911(2): 287-293. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3911.2.10 Open access