Sohal Tang

The sohal surgeonfish was first formally described in 1775 as Chaetodon sohal by the Swedish-speaking Finnish naturalist, explorer and orientalist Peter Forsskål with its type locality given as the Red Sea. Forsskål proposed Acanthuirus as a subgenus of Chaetodon although he recognised that it was probably different from Chaetodon even at the family level. In 1856 Desmarest designated Teuthis hepatus, which had been described from a type now known to have been collected at Ambon Island in the Moluccas (other erroneous type localities were named) in 1758 by Linnaeus, as the type species of the genus. In 2014 it was proposed that the type species of Acanthurus should be C. sohal, which had also been described by Forsskål in 1775 as a member of the subgenus alongside C. bifasciatus, C. nigrofuscus and C. unicornis, and had been designated as the type species by Jordan and Evermann in 1917.

The sohal surgeonfish's specific name, sohal, is the Arabic name for this species along the Red Sea coast.

The sohal surgeonfish is endemic to the northwestern Indian Ocean where it is found in the Red Sea, east along the coast of the Arabian Peninsula to the Persian Gulf. It is usually found on the outer edges of fringing reefs that are exposed to surge, typically down to depths of around .

]] The sohal surgeonfish may be encountered either singly or in small schools and is known to be very territorial. The spine on the caudal peduncle has been reported to bear venom. It grazes on algae growing on hard substrates and despite being solitary they will school to graze in the territories of other fishes. The territory guards food resources and the territory holder may shelter and otherwise spend a lot of time out of its territory or patrolling its boundaries.

The sohal surgeonfish is targeted by fisheries as a food fish and is also traded in the aquarium trade.