from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. Any of various small tropical marine fishes of the family Pomacentridae, having laterally compressed, usually brightly colored bodies. Also called demoiselle.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. Any of a number of fish in the Pomacentridae taxonomic family.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. small brilliantly colored tropical marine fishes of coral reefs.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A name in tropical regions of various species of the family Pomacentridæ, especially of those which have brilliant colors.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. small brilliantly colored tropical marine fishes of coral reefs
In the 10-year period in question, 33 new fish species have been found in the waters around the island, including the damselfish, a strikingly brilliant blue wrasse and seven species of zig-zag rainbow fish, an 11cm-long creature which lives in shallow waters.
If attacked by a damselfish, it morphs one of its arms into the visage of the fearsome sea snake that eats damselfish.
On a recent visit, yellow damselfish peered through a porthole and a mean-mouthed barracuda lurked nearby.
The BBC series Pacific Abyss shows the discovery of several new species of damselfish.
(News source.) The most spectacular recovery was of the bright blue damselfish found 120m down off Palau.
Chromis abyssus – a beautiful species of damselfish made it to the top 10 representing the first taxonomic act of 2008 and the first act registered in the newly launched taxonomic database Zoobank.
These include the clownfish (Amphiprion), damselfish (Dascyllus), and wrasse (Coris gaimardi).
Other important components of the fringing reef ecosystem include algae (brown, red and green), marine invertebrates (shrimp, lobster, crabs and sea urchins) and fishes (parrotfish, wrasses, damselfish, surgeonfish, goatfish, jacks and sharks).
Some of the most memorable smaller fish and creatures I saw were brittle starfish (they live under rocks and will climb off your hand quickly if you try to hold one), octopus, conch, sea turtles, moray eels, blue tangs and of course, those feisty damselfish.
Just before dawn he found two cone shells he couldn't identify, three inches long and audacious, attempting to devour a damselfish they had paralyzed.