formosa, Sciaena Shaw [G.] in Shaw & Nodder 1812:no page number, Pl. 1007 [The Naturalist's Miscellany; ref. 4013] Vizagapatam, India. No types known. Based on "Rahtee bontoo" of Russell 1803:22, Pl. 29 [ref. 13862]. We treat authorship as Shaw in Shaw & Nodder. •Valid as Cephalopholis formosa (Shaw 1812) -- (Heemstra & Randall 1986:517 [ref. 5667], Allen & Swainston 1988:54 [ref. 25477], Paxton et al. 1989:491 [ref. 12442], Lee 1990:28 [ref. 19830], Randall et al. 1990:102 [ref. 15987], Randall & Heemstra 1991:43 [ref. 19601], Heemstra & Randall 1993:42 [ref. 21042], Mohsin & Ambak 1996:228 [ref. 27969], Allen 1997:82 [ref. 23977], Randall et al. 1997:102 [ref. 25919], Heemstra & Randall 1999:2478 [ref. 24815], Nakabo 2000:711 [ref. 25086] with authors as Shaw & Nodder, Randall in Randall & Lim 2000:609 [ref. 25122], Nakabo 2002:711 [ref. 26001] with authors as Shaw & Nodder, Allen & Adrim 2003:31 [ref. 26830] with authors as Shaw & Nodder, Manilo & Bogorodsky 2003:S104 [ref. 27377], Hoese et al. 2006:1004 [ref. 28999], Satapoomin in Motomura & Satapoomin 2009:84 [ref. 30492], Craig et al. 2011:25 [ref. 31786], Allen & Erdmann 2012:262 [ref. 31980], Yoshida et al. 2013:98 [ref. 34464], Ma & Craig 2018:454 [ref. 36100], Habib & Islam 2020:Supplementary table p. 21 [ref. 38321], Parenti & Randall 2020:53 [ref. 37354], Psomadakis et al. 2020:383 [ref. 37272], Ray & Mohapatra 2020:108 [ref. 37300], Akhilesh et al. 2021:49 [ref. 38701], Nakamura in Motomura et al. 2021:19 [ref. 38121], Heemstra 2022:41 [ref. 39742], Moazzam & Osmany 2023:661 [ref. 40722]). Current status: Valid as Cephalopholis formosa (Shaw 1812). Epinephelidae. Distribution: Indo-West Pacific: Lakshadweep Islands, Pakistan, India and Myanmar east to Philippines, north to southern Japan, south to northern Western Australia. Habitat: marine.