Amphiprion tricinctus
| Three-band anemonefish | |
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Not evaluated (IUCN 3.1)
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Family: | Pomacentridae |
| Genus: | Amphiprion |
| Species: | A. tricinctus |
| Binomial name | |
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Amphiprion tricinctus Schultz & Welander, 1953 |
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Amphiprion tricinctus, also known as the three-band anemonefish, is a species of anemonefish that is endemic to the Marshall Islands in the western part of the Pacific Ocean. Like all anemonefishes it forms a symbiotic mutualism with sea anemones and is unaffected by the stinging tentacles of the host anemone. It is a sequential hermaphrodite with a strict sized based dominance hierarchy: the female is largest, the breeding male is second largest, and the male non-breeders get progressively smaller as the hierarchy descends. They exhibit protandry, meaning the breeding male will change to female if the sole breeding female dies, with the largest non-breeder becomes the breeding male. The fish's natural diet includes zooplankton.
The body of A. tricinctus is yellow-orange at the snout, belly, pelvic and anal fins tending to dark brown or black at the tail. As the common name suggests, as an adult it has 3 white bands or bars. They can grow to be about 13 centimetres (5.1 in) long
As A. tricinctus is endemic to the Marshall Islands there are no geographic variation, however there are variations to the proportions of orange and black, from predominately orange through to predominantly black and the occasional aberrant coloration. Fish living with the host anemone Stichodactyla mertensii, Mertens' carpet sea anemone, are frequently black except for the snout and bars.
There are 2 other species with 3 body bars and a dark tail, A. chrysogaster and A. fuscocaudatus. however the species are geographically separated. 3 other species of anemonefish are found in the Marshall Islands, A. chrysopterus, A. melanopus and A. perideraion. These are easily distinguished from A. tricinctus as A. chrysopterus has two body bars and a whitish caudal fin, A. melanopus only has a head bar, while A. perideraion as a distinctive white stripe on the dorsal ridge.Genetic analysis has shown that A. tricinctus is closely related to A. clarkii and this clade is significantly different from the other species traditionally considered part of the clarkii complex.
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