Variola (fish)
genus of fishes
Variola, the lyretails, is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, groupers from the subfamily Epinephelinae, part of the family Serranidae, which also includes the anthias and sea basses. They are found in the tropical Indo-Pacific and their distribution extends from the Red Sea to South Africa across the Indian Ocean and east to the islands of the central Pacific.
Characteristics
The lyretails have an oblong shaped body which has a depth that is less than the length of the head and which has a standard length that is 2.8 to 3.2 times its depth. They have a slightly convex dorsal profile of the head and a snout which is longer than the diameter of the eye. Both species have a rounded preopercle with a finely serrated margin and a fleshy lower margin. There are three flat spines on the gill cover which has a straight upper margin. Both the upper and lower jaws have a pair of large canine teeth at the front and there are also 1 to 3 large canines in the middle of the lower jaw, and there are teeth on the roof of the mouth as well. The dorsal fin contains 9 spines and 13 to 15 soft rays and it has its origin above the posterior end of the gill cover. The membranes between the spines of the dorsal fin are not or are only slightly incised. The anal fin has 3 separated spines and 8 soft rays.
“Variola (fish)” enters the record as genus of fishes. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Variola, fish and genus can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Variola (fish)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Variola, fish and genus provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q137222. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Variola (fish)” 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.