Cirrhitus

Cirrhitus is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, hawkfishes from the family Cirrhitidae. The species in this genus are found on tropical reefs worldwide.

==Taxonomy== Cirrhites was first formally described as a genus in 1803 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède, Lacépède created it as a monotypic genus for his newly described species from Mauritius, Cirrhitus maculatus. However, it was later shown that Lacépède's C. maculatus was synonymous with Labrus pinnulatus described in manuscript by the German naturalist and explorer Johann Reinhold Forster from Tahiti. Forster's was the basis of the description published in 1801 by Johann Gottlob Schneider in his and Marcus Elieser Bloch's Systema Ichthyologiae, although Catalog of Fishes attributes the name to Forster. The name of this genus is derived from cirrhus meaning a "lock of hair" or a "barbel", Lacépède did not explain what he feature the name alludes to. It may be alluding to the unbranched pectoral fin rays which Lacépède termed as “barbillons”, which means "barbels" in his description of the type species of the genus C. maculatus, and which he thought to be “false” pectoral fins. Another possibility is that the name refers to cirri extending from the tips of the spines in the dorsal fin spines, although Lacépède did not mention this feature.