The reef-associating butterfly fish Chaetodon austriacus Ruppell, 1836 in the Mediterranean: The implication of behavioral plasticity for bioinvasion hazard assessment

A single specimen of the blacktail butterflyfish, Chaetodon austriacus, one of the most common butterflyfishes in the Red Sea, was collected in the port of Ashdod, on the Mediterranean coast of Israel in August 2011. The present record demonstrates a greater than expected plasticity in habitat choice and feeding habits in a species considered an obligate corallivore. Recent records of Eritrean coral-reef associating species in the Mediterranean serve as a warning that life-history based bioinvasion risk assessment has limited predictability in cases where species have broader environmental tolerances than their native range would seem to indicate.