Chirodactylus

Chirodactylus is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, traditionally regarded as belonging to the family Cheilodactylidae, the members of which are commonly known as morwongs. They are native to the Atlantic, Indian and eastern Pacific oceans off southern Africa and South America.

==Taxonomy== Chirodactylus was described as a genus in 1862 by the American ichthyologist Theodore Nicholas Gill with the South American Cheilodactylus antonii, which had been described by Achille Valenciennes in 1833, as the type species by monotypy. Gill subsequently included two other species in Chirodactylus, C. grandis and C, variegatus. C. antonii was later shown to be a synonym of Cheilodactylus variegatus. Chirodactylus was largely regarded as a synonym of Cheilodactylus until 1980 when the South African ichthyologist Margaret M. Smith resurrected it to include the three southern African species C. brachydactylus, C. grandis and C. jessicalenorum, as well as C. variegatus. Genetic and morphological analyses strongly suggest that Chirodactylus is a valid genus, that the inclusion of the red moki (Cheilodactylus spectabilis) does not affect its monophyly and that the genus should be placed in the family Latridae. The 5th edition of Fishes of the World, however, retains the genus within the family Cheiloactylidae.