Description: Body relatively thin, long and narrow with a large eye and a pointed snout and a terminal small mouth. Pectoral fins medium. Pelvic fins very short. Dorsal and anal-fin bases relatively long, caudal peduncle short and somewhat narrow. Melanophores occur internally around the gut near the vent, and in a row of 11, 12, or occasionally 13 (but rule out Sparisoma when 13) discrete round melanophores along the base of the anal fin and extending into the caudal peduncle (often missing the last in the series). The melanophores in the row after the last fin ray are not at the ventral midline but can be well into the caudal peduncle musculature. Series of transitional larvae show development of the eye from a narrowed vertical oval tilted forward with a small posterior-inferior extension of the iris to much larger and round at and after transition. Many pre-transitional larvae have a marked ventral indentation in the iris. Transitional larvae develop a few scattered melanophores on the top of the head and two arcs from the mid and upper eye across the top of the head (transitional Sparisoma have a similar upper arc but do not have the arc starting at the mid-eye).
Analogues: C. roseus is primarily identified by the absence of the characteristic lateral melanophore of Sparisoma in a pre-transitional larva (does not apply to transitional larvae). Additional characters that may assist are the loss (or fading out) of one or more of the last few anal row melanophores, which correlates well with no lateral melanophore (also only applicable to pre-transitional larvae). Most C. roseus larvae do have fewer than 13 melanophores in the anal-fin row. Lastly, the snout is usually sharply-pointed in this larval type. Unfortunately, transitional Sparisoma larvae can lose their lateral melanophore and show a reduced complement of anal row melanophores: thus the distinction becomes difficult at early transition before the metamorphic melanophore pattern starts. Furthermore, there is the possibility that some rare pre-transition Sparisoma do lack the lateral melanophore and/or the full 13 anal row melanophores (some larvae have 12 in the row, but are missing the first and not the last). DNA sequence analyses underway at present should resolve this potential overlap.
Diagnosis: Fin-ray counts of D-IX,10 A-III,9 are shared by all Caribbean parrotfishes, however pectoral-fin ray counts divide parrotfishes into two groups: Sparisoma, Cryptotomus roseus, and Nicholsina usta all have 13 pectoral-fin rays, while Scarus have a mode of 14-16 pectoral-fin rays (the wrasse Doratonotus megalepis also shares the median fin-ray count but has 11-12 pectoral-fin rays). This larval type develops into Cryptotomus roseus when raised in captivity, but the demarkation between C. roseus and Sparisoma is unclear. Larval Nicholsina usta cannot be excluded from the type until those larvae are identified (adults of the species are not found at the collection site in Panama). (R)
