Tribe Rhabdamiini new name Fraser & Mabuchi

Type genus Rhabdamia Weber 1909

Diagnosis. Members of the Apogoninae: dorsal fin VI+I,9 or VII+I,10–11; anal fin II,11–13; head and body with weakly ctenoid or cycloid; pored lateral-line scales 23–24; preopercle ridge smooth, edges smooth; two supraneurals; supramaxilla absent; basisphenoid present or absent; anterior pair of uroneurals reduced or absent; three epurals; hypurals 1+2+3+4 fused, the plate fused to terminal centrum; parhypural separate; no autogenous haemal spines; 1–2 supernumerary dorsal spines; caudal fin forked.

Other characteristics. first segmented fin-ray in second dorsal-fin branched, first anal-fin ray branched and segmented; pectoral-fin rays 13–17; 9+8 segmented principal caudal rays, 15 branched, upper and lower unbranched; developed gill rakers 17–31; unbranched procurrent rays, longest segmented; villiform teeth in one or two rows on premaxilla, or with a few canines (Bentuviaichthys), one villiform row on dentary and vomer, one villiform row or absent on palatine; six infraorbitals, bony shelf reduce or absent on third infraorbital; stomach and intestine pale with melanophores and silvery peritoneum with melanophores; 10+14 vertebrae; low crest on PU2.

Distribution. No reviews of the species have been made, but members have been reported from East Africa, the Red Sea, islands in the Indian Ocean, the West Pacific and out onto the Pacific Plate.

Remarks. This tribe contains one genus Rhabdamia (including two subgenera Rhabdamia and Bentuviaichthys sensu Fraser 1972). There are six names (Appendix A). Three species are streamlined apogonines exploiting the near pelagic zone of coral reefs for food. Likely synapomorphies include smooth preopercle ridge and edges, reduced dentition, fused hypurals, and two supraneurals. All species are mostly translucent. In the present molecular analyses, they formed a robust monophyletic group (clade IX) with Yarica hyalosoma (Figs. 2–6, Table 4) (see also Fig. 7), but it is very unlikely based on morphological evidence (for details, see the remarks of the tribe Glossamiini). In Fraser (1972), subgenus Rhabdamia was classified under the genus Rhabdamia together with the subgenera Bentuviaichthys and Verulux Fraser 1972. The last lineage, Verulux (clade V), was placed far from the first lineage, Rhabdamia, in the present molecular trees (Figs. 2–6). Although monophyly between the two lineages was not rejected by AU test (H05 in Table 6), we recognized each of them in its own tribe for the present (for Verulux, see the tribe Veruluxini). The present molecular analyses did not include Bentuviaichthys, but it was included in this tribe based on the following morphological characters: fused hypurals 1+2+3+4, epipleurals absent on last three ribs, single row of teeth on dentary, two supraneurals, slender, mostly translucent body and forked caudal fin. Two individuals of Rhabdamia gracilis from two distantly distributed populations (Fiji and Ryukyu Islands) were paraphyletic to R. spilota Allen & Kuiter 1994 and genetically distant from each other, which may indicate needs of taxonomical revisions of them.