Updated 24 Feb. 2026
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Trichonotus Bloch & Schneider 1801 trichós (τριχός), genitive singular of thríx (θρίξ), hair; notus, from nṓtos (νῶτος), back, referring to elongate or filamentous anterior dorsal-fin rays of T. setiger males

Trichonotus arabicus Randall & Tarr 1994 -icus (L.), belonging to: Arabian (Persian) Gulf and Arabian Sea, where it occurs

Trichonotus blochii Castelnau 1875 in honor of German physician-ichthyologist Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799), who proposed the genus (with Schneider) in 1801

Trichonotus cyclograptus (Alcock 1890) cyclo-, from kýklos (κύκλος), ring or circle; graptus, from graptós (γραπτός), marked (usually with letter), referring to “brilliant” turquoise-gold eyespots arranged in parallel rows on head and body, and on dorsal, anal and caudal fins (eyespots turn to dark-gray rings in alcohol)

Trichonotus elegans Shimada & Yoshino 1984 Latin for elegant, referring to its “elegant body shape and undulating swimming motion”

Trichonotus filamentosus (Steindachner 1867 Latin for filamentous, presumably referring to elongate middle ventral-fin ray of males (which lack the filamentous dorsal-fin rays seen on congeners)

Trichonotus halstead Clark & Pohle 1996 in honor of dive instructor and underwater photographer Dinah Halstead and her husband Bob (1944–2018), a dive-tour operator, both “phenomenal fish observers, whose expertise in fishes of PNG [Papua New Guinea] has contributed greatly to our studies” [a noun in apposition, without the plural genitive “orum”]

Trichonotus marleyi (Smith 1936) in honor of Natal fisheries officer Harold Walter Bell-Marley (1872–1945), who presented holotype

Trichonotus nikii Clark & von Schmidt 1966 in honor of Niki Konstantinou, “youngest member on the field trip to the Red Sea” (type locality); according to a 2015 obituary of the first author, Niki is Nickolas, her youngest son, six-years-old at the time, whose dive mask held the holotype, and for whom the fish was nicknamed “Tricky Niki” due to its sand-burying behavior (the formal naming of the fish after him was “Much to my brother’s annoyance,” Nikolas later said)

Trichonotus setiger Bloch & Schneider 1801 seta or saeta (L.), hair or bristle; -iger (L.), to have or bear, presumably referring to long, filamentous anterior dorsal-fin rays of males

Trichonotus somaliensis Katayama, Motomura & Endo 2012 -ensis, Latin suffix denoting place: coast of Somalia, type locality