Roa rumsfeldi is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a butterflyfish belonging to the family Chaetodontidae. It is the fifth known species of the genus Roa and was discovered in Anilao, Philippines in 2016. This species has vertical white and brown stripes and has a black spine on the ventral fin contrary to the other Roa specimens.[1]

Roa rumsfeldi
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Chaetodontidae
Genus: Roa
Species:
R. rumsfeldi
Binomial name
Roa rumsfeldi
Rocha, Pinheiro, Wandell, Rocha & Shepherd, 2017

Etymology edit

The specific name honours the former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, because his quote “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know” applies to the describers view on what is known about mesophotic fish species. [2]

References edit

  1. ^ Shepherd, Bart; Rocha, Claudia R.; Wandell, Matt; Pinheiro, Hudson T.; Rocha, Luiz A. (18 October 2017). "Roa rumsfeldi, a new butterflyfish (Teleostei, Chaetodontidae) from mesophotic coral ecosystems of the Philippines". ZooKeys (709): 127–134. doi:10.3897/zookeys.709.20404. PMC 5674171. PMID 29118639 – via zookeys.pensoft.net.
  2. ^ Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (21 July 2020). "Order ACANTHURIFORMES (part 1): Families LOBOTIDAE, POMACANTHIDAE, DREPANEIDAE and CHAETODONTIDAE". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 6 January 2021.