Pavo Razorfish

Facts about the Pavo Razorfish it is a marine fish, belonging to the Pava genus of the Labridae family. The scientific name of the Pavo Razorfish is Iniistius pavo and it is also called Blue razorfish, Indianfish blue razorfish, Peacock razorfish, Razor wrasse, Peacock wrasse, and Red-belly razor wrasse. The Pavo Razorfish species is largely found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the fish is sometimes caught for the aquarium trade, even though this is considered to be a species of minor threat, and recorded as Least Concern.

Features

The Pavo Razorfish is an average-size fish that can grow to maximum length of 10.1 inches (4.1 cm). The body and the head of the Pavo Razorfish are strongly compressed. The Pavo Razorfish's head profile is extremely steep, almost vertical, with a plump longitudinal keel at the front. Its eyes are situated on the upper half of the head. The Pavo Razorfish has a pair of extended anterior curved canine teeth in each of its jaw, and its lower jaw is seen without back canine teeth.

The Pavo Razorfish has a total of 12 second and seventh dorsal rays and its first two dorsal spines are separated from the remaining fins. The juvenile Pavo Razorfish have greatly prolonged dorsal spines. The Pavo Razorfish species has 12 anal rays and 12 pectoral rays. It has a small, circular tail fin, a lateral line, which is divided into two parts. The Pavo Razorfish has pored scales that range from 20 to 22, with less 4 to 5 head scales, except for a patch of scales below its eyes.

The Pavo Razorfish has white to yellowish white body with 4 indistinguishable broad dark bars on its body and small black mark on its upper side on top of the eighth scale of the lateral line. There are blue-edged scales at the lower part of the first dark bars, middle of scales on the lower two-third of the second dark bar with a blue color bar. The dorsal and the anal fins of the Pavo Razorfish are oblique with thin blue color bars and a blue color sub-marginal streak, whereas its tail fin is seen with a blue sub-marginal bar. The juvenile Pavo Razorfish species have a whitish body with 4 disperse brown bars, slim brown streaks radiating from their eyes, and their pelvic fins are completely brown in color.

The Pavo Razorfish mostly prefers to live in habitats that are found on unwrap sand close to reefs. The Pavo Razorfish species is usually found unaccompanied in pond and seaward reef regions with fine to loose, crude sand bottoms. It is also found in areas with grimy bottoms at a depth that ranges from 16.5 feet to 330 feet (5 meters to 100 meters).

Juvenile Pavo Razorfish species are sometimes seen in low estuaries. Individuals are stumbled upon hovering just over the bottom, and submerge their head into the sand first when the danger approaches them.

Diet

The Pavo Razorfish mostly feeds on hard-shelled prey, as well as crustaceans and molluscs. The Juvenile fish will feed on wandering dead leaves by holding the elongate disconnected front part of their dorsal fin forward over their head.

The average lifespan of the Pavo Razorfish ranges from 1.5 years to 2 years.