Chaetodermis
genus of fishes
Chaetodermis penicilligerus, also known as the prickly leather-jacket, tasselled leather-jacket or leafy filefish, is a demersal marine fish belonging to the family Monacanthidae. This fish is in the monotypic genus Chaetodermis. It occasionally makes its way into the marine aquarium fish trade.
Description
The prickly leather-jacket is a medium-sized fish which grows up to 31 cm (12 in).
The body is highly compressed laterally, stocky, the mouth is terminal; the head size is big proportionally to the body.
Dermal appendages are visible mainly on the body's margin and also on the sides. They are part of the fish's camouflage system.
Distribution and habitat
It is widely distributed throughout the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf and South Africa excluded, to the central islands of the Pacific Ocean.
The background coloration of the body is light brown or sand-colored with dark longitudinal lines and blotches outlined with blue.
The prickly leather-jacket has two erectile dorsal spines.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Chaetodermis” is genus of fishes. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Chaetodermis, genus and fishes, not as a finished interpretation.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2091254. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chaetodermis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.