Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Synchi­ro­pus splen­didus is found in much of the west­ern Pa­cific in­clud­ing the Philip­pines, In­done­sia, Hong Kong, Aus­tralia, and New Guinea (Del­beek, 1989). These fish are also found in the Ryukyu Is­lands (Ran­dall et al. 1990). Out­side of its na­tive range, S. splen­didus is pri­marly a ma­rine aquar­ium fish (San­dovy et al. 2001). (Del­beek, 1989; Ran­dall, et al., 1990; Sadovy, et al., 2001)

• Biogeographic Regions
• oriental
  • native
• australian
  • native
• pacific ocean
  • native

Habi­tat

Man­darin fish are trop­i­cal, ma­rine fish found in wa­ters with a tem­per­a­ture range of 24 to 26ºC. They are bot­tom dwelling, found at depths up to 18 m (Ran­dall et al. 1990). Dur­ing spawn­ing they are pelagic and are seen in the open ocean (Sadovy et al, 2001). Man­darin fish are found on coral reefs and shal­low la­goons hid­den under fo­liose and dead coral (Ran­dall et al. 1990). It is dif­fi­cult to main­tain man­darin fish in cap­tiv­ity be­cause of their di­etary re­quire­ments (Sadovy et al, 2001). (Ran­dall, et al., 1990; Sadovy, et al., 2001)

• Habitat Regions
• tropical
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• reef

• Range depth

  1 to 18 m

  3.28 to 59.06 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Man­darin fish are dis­tinc­tive due to their un­usual shape and in­tense col­oration. They have a broad, de­pressed head and are pri­mar­ily blue with or­ange, red, and yel­low wavy lines (Del­beek 1989). Man­darin fish are small, reach­ing a max­i­mum length of 6 cm. Males are no­tably larger than fe­males (Sadovy et al. 2001). Man­darin fish lack scales and in­stead have a thick mucus coat­ing that has an un­pleas­ant smell (San­dovy et al. 2005). They have 4 dor­sal spines, 8 dor­sal soft rays, and no anal spines. In males, the first dor­sal spine is greatly elon­gated, some­times long enough to reach the cau­dal pe­dun­cle (Del­beek 1989). (Del­beek, 1989; Sadovy, et al., 2001; Sadovy, et al., 2004)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger

• Range length

  .02 to 6 cm

  0.01 to 2.36 in

De­vel­op­ment

Man­darin fish have a short in­cu­ba­tion time and lar­vae that are small and de­velop quickly. Clutch sizes range from 12 to 205. Eggs mea­sure from 0.7 to 0.8 mm in di­am­e­ter, are col­or­less, spher­i­cal, and pelagic. The eggs at first are clumped to­gether and then slowly break up into smaller units. The eyes be­come pig­mented and the mouth be­comes well de­vel­oped 36 hours after fer­til­iza­tion. Dur­ing the flex­ion stage, which oc­curs after 8 to 11 days, the cau­dal fins be­come dis­tinc­tive, the pelvic fin rays move dis­tally and the body be­comes ro­bust. The lar­vae are ac­tive and feed­ing at this stage. After 12 to 14 days, which is the set­tle­ment stage, ju­ve­niles look like the adults with a large head,and a tri­an­gu­lar shaped body. In 18 to 21 days, the body dark­ens to an or­ange brown color with green­ish band­ing and the dor­sal spines are ob­served. The adult color pat­tern does not de­velop until the sec­ond month when lengths are from 10 to 15 mm. The swim blad­der is re­tained in adults (Sadovy et al. 2001). (Sadovy, et al., 2004)

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis

Re­pro­duc­tion

Spawn­ing oc­curs on areas of the reef where small groups of males and fe­males gather dur­ing the night. Mat­ing oc­curs when the male and the fe­male re­lease sperm and eggs after they align them­selves and rise about a meter above the reef. Each fe­male spawns only once each night and may go with­out spawn­ing for a few days. Since there are few ac­tive fe­males, there is much com­pe­ti­tion amoung the males. The larger and stronger males tend to mate more fre­quently be­cause there seems to be a sex­ual pref­er­ence by the fe­males for larger males (Sadovy, 2001). (Sadovy, 2001)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Man­darin fish are pelagic spawn­ers. Ex­ter­nal fer­til­iza­tion oc­curs when a male and fe­male are in close con­tact and swim­ming up­ward. Spawn­ing oc­curs at about weekly in­ter­vals where up to 200 eggs are re­leased. This oc­curs for sev­eral months (Del­breek, 1989) Man­darin fish breed year round. The pop­u­la­tion dou­bling time is less than 15 months (Ran­dall, 1990). (Del­beek, 1989; Ran­dall, et al., 1990)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• year-round breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
  • external
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Breeding can occur weekly throughout the year.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs year round.

• Range number of offspring

  200 (high)

• Average time to hatching

  12 hours

Man­darin fish have no parental in­volve­ment after re­lease and fer­til­iza­tion of eggs.

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning

Lifes­pan/Longevity

In the wild man­darin fish are ex­pected to live be­tween 10 to 15 years (Sale, 2002). In cap­tiv­ity, how­ever the lifes­pan is greatly re­duced due to di­etary re­quire­ments. On av­er­age, man­darin fish live be­tween 2 to 4 years in cap­tiv­ity (Del­beek, 1989). (Del­beek, 1989; Sale, 2002)

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  10 to 15 years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: captivity

  2 to 4 years

Be­hav­ior

Man­darin fish are slow, shy, and mostly pas­sive. They have large fan-like pelvic fins which are used often to walk along the bot­tom. Man­darin fish are found usu­ally in groups or in pairs on reefs. In cap­tiv­ity, man­darin fish are rather in­tol­er­ant of con­specifics. Two males will not sur­vive to­gether in an aquar­ium due to their agres­sive be­hav­ior to­wards each other (Del­beek 1989). Dur­ing day­light hours, man­darin fish move along coral branches or hide in their home crevices (Sadovy et al. 2004). (Del­beek, 1989; Sadovy, et al., 2004)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• diurnal
• motile
• sedentary
• solitary
• territorial
• social

Home Range

There was no in­for­ma­tion found per­tain­ing to the home range of man­darin fish.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Man­darin fish se­crete mu­cous that has an un­pleas­ant smell and a bit­ter taste. They also have a layer of sac­ci­form cells on the skin which pro­duce and re­lease sub­stances with some tox­ins. It is sug­gested that this se­cre­tion is used as a re­pel­lent from preda­tors and other com­pet­i­tive fish. The sig­nif­i­cance of the vi­brant dis­play of col­ors of the species is not known. How­ever, it prob­a­bly makes them highly con­spic­u­ous when feed­ing and mat­ing and may be an apose­matic warn­ing (Sadovy et al. 2005). (Sadovy, et al., 2004)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

Man­darin fish feed on the bot­tom. They eat small crus­taceans such as am­phipods and isopods, small worms and pro­to­zoans. Much of its food in­take is found liv­ing in the reefs and other live rock. If there is a sub­stan­tial amount of live rock, man­darin fish do not need any other out­side source for food. In cap­tiv­ity, the fish usu­ally do not eat pre­pared food, there­fore it be­comes dif­fi­cult to main­tain them. They need a great sup­ply of live rock to feed. Man­darin fish have a rel­a­tively small mouth, there­fore they eat only small food items (Del­beek 1989). (Del­beek, 1989)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • vermivore
• omnivore

• Animal Foods
• aquatic or marine worms

• Other Foods
• microbes

Pre­da­tion

Man­darin fish se­crete mu­cous which might act to repel preda­tors. The in­tense col­oration also might play a role in avoid­ing pre­da­tion by sig­nalling to po­ten­tial preda­tors that they are toxic (Sadovy et al. 2005). Early de­vel­op­ment could pos­si­bly be an adap­tive strat­egy to re­duce the risk of pre­da­tion (Sadovy et al, 2001). There is no avail­able in­for­ma­tion on spe­cific preda­tors of the species. (Sadovy, et al., 2001; Sadovy, et al., 2004)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Man­darin fish eat small in­ver­te­brates (Sadovy et al. 2004). Be­yond this, lit­tle is known of the role of man­darin fish in the ecosys­tem. (Sadovy, et al., 2004)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

The vi­brant dis­play col­ors of man­darin fish make them valu­able fish for the aquar­ium trade (Sadovy, 2001). The aquar­ium trade of man­darin fish plays a part in the local economies of the Phillip­ines and Hong Kong. These fish are also used as food in many Asian coun­tries (Sadovy, 2001). (Sadovy, 2001; Sadovy, et al., 2001)

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse ef­fects of S. splen­didus on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Man­darin fish do not have any spe­cial con­ser­va­tion sta­tus cur­rently (Ran­dall, 1990). (Ran­dall, et al., 1990)

• IUCN Red List

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Komal Patel (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Kevin Wehrly (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Del­beek, C. 1989. The Man­darin Fish: Synchi­ro­pus splen­didus. Seascope.

Ran­dall, J., A. G.R, S. R.C. 1990. "Fish­base" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 11, 2005 at http://​www.​fishbase.​org/​Summary/​SpeciesSummary.​php?​id=12644.

Sadovy, Y., J. Ran­dall, M. Raotto. 2004. Skin struc­ture in six drag­onet species (Go­b­ieso­ci­f­ormes; Cal­lionymi­dae): in­ter­spe­cific dif­fer­ences in glan­du­lar cell types and mucus se­cre­tion.. Jour­nal of Fish Bi­ol­ogy, 66: 1411-1418. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 11, 2005 at www.​blackwell-synergy.​com.

Sadovy, Y. 2001. When being fe­male is bet­ter. Por­cu­pine, 23. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 16, 2005 at www.​hku.​hk/​ecology/​porcupine/​por23/​23-vertebrates.​htm.

Sadovy, Y., G. Mitch­e­son, M. Ra­sotto. 2001. Early de­vel­op­ment of the man­dar­in­fish, Synchi­ro­pus splen­didu (Cal­lionymi­dae), with notes on its fish­ery and po­ten­tial for cul­ture.. Aquar­ium Sci­ences and Con­ser­va­tion, 3: 253-263.

Sale, P. 2002. Coral Reef Fishes : dy­nam­ics and di­ver­sity in a com­plex ecosys­tem. San Diego, CA: Aca­d­e­mic Press.