Peristediidae, the armored sea robins or armoured gurnards, is a

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

ray-finned fishes Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or h ...

belonging to 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 ...

Platycephaloidei in the

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 ...

Scorpaeniformes. They are found in the deep water in the tropical and warm temperate of the world's oceans.

Taxonomy

Peristediidae was first proposed as a family in 1883 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 ...

David Starr Jordan David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...

and

Charles Henry Gilbert Charles Henry Gilbert (December 5, 1859 in Rockford, Illinois – April 20, 1928 in Palo Alto, California) was a pioneer ichthyologist and Fisheries science, fishery biologist of particular significance to natural history of the western Unit ...

. 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 ...

'' classifies the family within the Platycephaloidei, which is a suborder of the order Scorpaeniformes. Other authorities differ and do not consider the Scorpaeniformes to be a valid order because the Perciformes is not

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

without the taxa within the Scorpaeniformes being included within it. These authorities consider the Peristediidae to belong to the suborder Triglioidei, along with the family Triglidae, within the Perciformes. The family Peristediidae is included in the Triglidae as the subfamily Peristediinae by some authorities.

Genera

The following genera are classified within the family Peristediidae: * '' Gargariscus'' H. M. Smith, 1917 * ''

Heminodus ''Heminodus'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Peristediidae, the armoured gurnards or armored sea robins. It is currently considered to be a monotypic genus, its only species being ''Heminodus philippinus''. Taxonomy ...

'' H. M. Smith, 1917 * ''

Paraheminodus ''Paraheminodus'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Peristediidae, the armoured gurnards or armored searobins. These fishes are found in the western Pacific Ocean. Taxonomy ''Paraheminodus'' was first described as a ge ...

'' Kamohara, 1958 * ''

Peristedion ''Peristedion'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Peristediidae, the armoured gurnards or armored sea robins. These fishes are found in Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific ocean waters. Taxonomy Peristedion was first des ...

Lacépède Lacepede can refer to: * Bernard Germain de Lacépède (1756–1825), French naturalist and politician. * Lacepede Bay, a bay in South Australia. * Lacépède, Lot-et-Garonne, a ''commune'' in France * Lacepede Islands, a group of four islands in t ...

, 1801 * ''

Satyrichthys ''Satyrichthys'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Peristediidae, the armoured gurnards or armored searobins. These fishes are found in the Indo-Pacific region. Taxonomy ''Satyrichthys'' was first described as a monoty ...

'' Kaup, 1873 * ''

Scalicus ''Scalicus'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Peristediidae, the armoured gurnards or armored searobins. These fishes are found in the Indo-Pacific region. Taxonomy ''Scalicus'' was first described as a monotypic gen ...

'' Jordan, 1923 Taxonomists working on the armoured gurnards have found that the family is

and that it divides into two

clades A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, t ...

, one consisting of only the genus ''Peristedion'' and the other 5 genera making up the other clade.

Etymology

Peristediidae takes its name from the genus ''Peristedion'' which is a combination of ''peri'', meaning "around", and ''stedion'', which is a diminutive of ''stethos'', which is Greek for "breast" or "chest", an allusion to the bony plates lining the underside of the body, similar to a plastron, the feature Lacépède use to distinguish ''Peristidion'' from ''

Trigla The piper gurnard (''Trigla lyra''), also known as the piper or the lyre gurnard, is a species of marine, demersal ray-finned fish from the family Triglidae, the gurnards and sea robins. It is found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterran ...

''.

Characteristics

Peristediidae fishes have the body encased in 4 rows of thick scutes, each plate is spined, on each side of the body. The mouth is under the snout with barbels on the lower jaw. Each of the preorbitals have a forward pointing projection. There are no scales on the head and body. The head is large and bony with numerous spines and ridges with a wide snout which is flattened on the top and bottom. They have no teeth and usually no tongue, although where there is a tongue it is simple and forked. There are two separate

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

s; the first contains between 7 and 9 spines while the second has between 16 and 23 segmented soft rays. The

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 ...

contains between 16 and 23 soft rays. The pectoral fins are short with joined rays and the lower 2 are free from the membrane. The swimbladder has one lobe. The smallest species in the family is ''

Peristedion paucibarbiger ''Peristedion'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family (biology), family Peristediidae, the armoured gurnards or armored sea robins. These fishes are found in Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific ocean waters. T ...

'' which has 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 species is the black-finned armoured-gurnard (''Satyrichthys moluccensis'') which has a maximum standard length of .

Distribution and habitat

Peristediidae fishes are found in the warmer waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. These fishes are found on continental or insular slopes, typically at depths greater than .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q687649 Platycephaloidei Ray-finned fish families