The imagery on this page is supporting material for a paper entitled A New Species of Halichoeres (Teleostei: Labridae) from the Western Gulf of Mexico, by D.C. Weaver and L.A. Rocha (2007, Copeia 2007:798-807). The abstract is as follows:

       A new labrid fish, Halichoeres burekae, is described from specimens collected at Stetson Bank, Flower        Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS), in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico over        claystone, sponge, and coral substrata. The bright purple, blue-green, and yellow        body coloration, and anterior black pigmentation of the dorsal fin in the terminal        male, large black irregular spot at the base of the caudal peduncle, salmon body        coloration, yellow snout in the initial stage/female, and diagnostic differences in        the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b gene separate this species from all other        western Atlantic labrids. Adult H. burekae were observed in small schools along the        reef crest mixed with Thalassoma bifasciatum and Chromis multilineata, and small        juveniles were observed in mixed schools with juvenile Clepticus parrae. It feeds        primarily on calanoid copepods and other plankton and is a close relative of H. socialis from Belize.        This species is currently known from the FGBNMS and reefs off Veracruz, Mexico, in the western Gulf        of Mexico.

This female specimen, a paratype, was collected at Stetson Bank, Flower Gardens Bank National Marine Sanctuary, Gulf of Mexico at a depth of 80 feet by D. C. Weaver on 19 April 2002. It was made available to The University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray CT Facility for scanning by Mr. Doug Weaver of the Flower Gardens Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Funding for scanning was provided by Mr. Weaver. Funding for image processing was provided by an NSF Digital Libraries Initiative grant to Dr. Timothy Rowe of The University of Texas at Austin.

The specimen was scanned by Matthew Colbert on 27 September 2002 along the coronal axis for a total of 615 slices. Each 1024x1024 pixel slice is 0.1079 mm thick, with an interslice spacing of 0.1079 mm and a field of reconstruction of 32 mm.

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