halichoeres ornatissimus & halichoeres claudia wrasses

EvMiBo

VictoriaConcordiaCrescit
Liveaquaria has the halichoeres claudia labeled as a christmas wrasse while other websites have the christmas wrasse labeled as halichoeres ornatissimus. I trust live aquaria but can anyone confirm which is which? It seems that the males and females of each look similar to the other species as well, I can see why this is confusing :hmm3:
 
The christmas wrasse H ornatissimus was just split into those two separate species. Other than slight pattern differences they are the same.
 
Did claudia keep the common name Christmas wrasse? I forgot to ask Mr Rocha when discussing the species split. I still call my Claudia a Christmas wrasse.
Walt
 
dug a little bit, bolding the parts that may answer the question the most:

Titre du document / Document title
Halichoeres claudia sp. nov., a New Indo-Pacific Wrasse (Perciformes: Labridae), the Fourth Species of the H. ornatissimus Complex

Auteur(s) / Author(s)
RANDALL John E. ; ROCHA Luiz A. ;

Résumé / Abstract
The labrid fish Halichoeres ornatissimus (Garrett), previously reported from the Hawaiian Is. (type locality) and various islands of Oceania to the Great Barrier Reef and Indonesia, as well as Christmas I. and the Cocos- Keeling Is. in the eastern Indian Ocean, is here recognized as endemic to the Hawaiian Is. and Johnston I. It is one of a complex with 3 other species: H. claudia sp. nov., from French Polynesia and the Line Is. to the Great Barrier Reef, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Indonesia, Christmas I., Cocos-Keeling Is., and Cartier Reef, Timor Sea; H. orientalis Randall from Japan and Taiwan; and H. cosmetus Randall and Smith from the Indian Ocean, including Christmas I. Halichoeres ornatissimus is distinguished from H. claudia sp. nov. by the green body stripes of adults being broken into a series of spots, by males losing the prominent middle black spot in the dorsal fin, by their attaining a larger size (116 mm standard length, compared to 92 mm for H. claudia sp. nov.), and by a 2% mitochondrial DNA sequence divergence. A neotype is designated for H. ornatissimus (the holotype was destroyed by the San Francisco fire of 1906).

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I assume behavior is pretty darn close then? :)
 
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