Aracana aurita

Aracana aurita, the Shaw's cowfish, painted boxfish, southern cowfish or striped cowfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Aracanidae, the deepwater boxfishes or temperate boxfishes. This species is endemic to the seas off southern Australia.

Taxonomy

Aracana auritia was first formally described in 1798 as Ostracion auritus by the Irish biologist George Shaw with its type locality given as the "Islands of the Pacific Ocean", thought to be Tasmania. In 1838 John Edward Gray proposed a monotypic subgenus of Ostracion which he named Aracana, in 1866 Pieter Bleeker formally designated O. aurita as the type species of Aracana. The 5th edition of Fishes of the World classifies this genus in the family Aracanidae which is in the suborder Ostracioidea within the order Tetraodontiformes.

Etymology

Aracana aurita is classified in the genus Aracana, a name which was variously spelt by Gray as Acarana in 1833, Acerana in 1835 and Aracana in 1838. The 1838 name is the one used because it has become the most commonly used name. Grey did not explain the name but in 1835 he referred to boxfishes as "parrotfishes", so the name may refer the aracanga (Macrocercus aracanga), an old name for the scarlet macaw (Ara macao). The specific name aurita, means "eared", an allusion to the spines resembling horns above each eye, these horns together looking similar to a pair of ears.

Description

Aracana aurita has 10 or 11 soft rays in the dorsal fin and in the anal fin while there are 11 or 12 soft rays in both the pectoral fin and caudal fin.