Paracirrhites

Paracirrhites is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, hawkfishes belonging to the family Cirrhitidae. These fishes are found on tropical reefs of the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

==Taxonomy== Paracirrhites was described in 1874 by the Dutch ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker, Bleeker designated Grammistes forsteri, described by the German naturalist Johann Gottlob Schneider in 1801, as the type species for his new genus in 1876. This genus appears to be a sister taxon to the genera Amblycirrhitus and Cirrhitus within the Cirrhitidae. The genus name is a compound of para meaning "near" or "similar to" and Cirrhites, an alternative spelling of the type genus of the family Cirrhitidae, Cirrhitus. There are three species of little known, small, largely sympatric and very similar Paracirrhites hawkfishes from Polynesia, P. bicolor, P. nisus and P. xanthus. These were all described by John E. Randall in 1963. It has been suggested that these are actually colour morphs of the same polymorphic species which has undergone some introgression of genes from the widespread and also sympatric arc-eye hawkfish.