Leiognathidae

Golden ponyfish

Photopectoralis aureus

Ten Centimeters Leiognathid Fish from Taiwanese Waters

• Yellow
• Tropical
• Regional distribution
• Pacific Ocean
• East Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Elongated
• Compressed cross-section
• Small
• Tropical fish

Photopectoralis aureus, commonly known as the golden ponyfish or false toothed ponyfish, is a marine ray-finned fish native to the Western Pacific from Taiwan south to Indonesia as well as to the Gulf of Thailand, Timor Sea, and the Arafura Sea. It grows to 10 cm (3.9 in) TL. This species was first formally described in 1972 as Leiognathus aureus by the Japanese ichthyologists Tokiharu Abe (1911-1996) and Yata Haneda (1907-1995) with the type locality given as Ambon fish market on Ambon Island. It is the type species of the genus Photopectoralis which was delineated by Sparks, Dunlap & W. L. Smith in 2005.