''Abantennarius'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the familyAntennariidae, the frogfishes. The fishes in the genus are found in the Indian, Pacific and, one species, in the Western Atlantic Oceans.
Taxonomy
''Abantennarius'' was first proposed as a genus in 1957 by the American
ichthyologist
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...
John Otterbein Snyder
John Otterbein Snyder (August 14, 1867 – August 19, 1943) was an American ichthyologist and professor of zoology at Stanford University.
History
As a student he met David Starr Jordan who inspired him to enter zoology. He eventually became a zoo ...
with its
type locality
Type locality may refer to:
* Type locality (biology)
* Type locality (geology)
See also
* Local (disambiguation)
* Locality (disambiguation)
{{disambiguation ...
given as between
Maui
The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...
and
Lanai
Lanai ( haw, Lānai, , , also ,) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple pl ...
in the
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...
. This genus has been regarded as a
synonym
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
of ''
Antennarius
''Antennarius'' is a genus of 11 species of fish in the family Antennariidae. These fish spend most of their lives on the bottom in relatively shallow water between 20 and 100 m. They can be found worldwide in tropical and subtropical waters. ...
'', but is now regarded as valid genus. Some authorities classify this genus in the
subfamily
In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...
Antennariinae within the family Antennariidae. However, the 5th edition of ''
Fishes of the World
''Fishes of the World'' by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011) is a standard reference for fish systematics. Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of the diversity and classification of the ...
'' does not recognise subfamilies within the Antennariidae, classifying the family within the
suborder
Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...
order
Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to:
* Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood
* Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...
''Abantennarius'' prefixes ''ab'', meaning "away from", onto ''antennarius'', a fish of the family Antennaridae. This is an allusion to the gill opening being positioned away from the base of the pectoral fin, which is typically where it is located in frogfishes.
Abantennarius coccineus
''Abantennarius coccineus'', the scarlet or freckled frogfish, is a species of frogfish originally classified as ''Chironectes coccineus'' and ''Antennarius coccineus''. It lives within tropical waters and has a central distribution being around ...
Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in nat ...
Radcliffe
Radcliffe or Radcliff may refer to:
Places
* Radcliffe Line, a border between India and Pakistan
United Kingdom
* Radcliffe, Greater Manchester
** Radcliffe Tower, the remains of a medieval manor house in the town
** Radcliffe tram stop
* ...
''Abantennarius'' frogfishes have round, nearly globular bodies that are to some degree compressed. They do not have spines on the illicium and the esca is very small or absent. The second dorsa spinenis not connected to the head by a membrane while the third dorsal spine may be flexible or immobile. The mouth is upward pointing and is very large. The pectoral fins have developed to resemble limbs and have an "elbow", the fin is widely linked to the body. The gill opening is small and round, under and to the rear of the base of the pectoral fin. There is no caudal peduncle and the rear edges of the dorsal fin and
anal fin
Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...
are connected to the caudal fin by membranes. The rays in the caudal fin may be branched. The body is covered in thick skin which is covered in dense, closely set spinules, They typically have a dark blotch covering part of the upper body and the base of the dorsal fin. The smallest species in the genus is ''A. duescus'', with a maximum published
standard length
Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies. These data are used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fisheries biology.
Overall length
* Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish m ...
of , while the largest is ''A. dorehensis'' with a maximum published total length is .
Distribution
''Abantennarius'' frogfishes are found in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean from the eastern coasts of Africa east to the western coasts of the Americas, with one species ''A. bermudensis'' in the western Atlantic Ocean.