Neosebastinae, the gurnard scorpionfishes or gurnard perches, is a small
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 ...
of deep-sea
ray-finned fish
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 hor ...
es, it is part of the
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 ...
Scorpaenidae
The Scorpaenidae (also known as scorpionfish) are a family of mostly marine fish that includes many of the world's most venomous species. As their name suggests, scorpionfish have a type of "sting" in the form of sharp spines coated with venom ...
. These fishes are found in the
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
and
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
oceans. Several of the species in this family are venomous.
Taxonomy
Neosebastinae, or the family Neosebastidae, were first described as a taxon by the Japanese ichthyologist
Kiyomatsu Matsubara
was a Japanese marine biologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist.
Born Kiyomatsu Sakamoto in Hyogo Prefecture, Kiyomatsu Matsubara was the first professor of the Department of Fisheries of the University of Kyoto and is considered to be the fou ...
in 1943.
[ The grouping is treated as a subfamily of the Scorpaenidae within the order ]Scorpaeniformes
The Scorpaeniformes are a diverse order of ray-finned fish, including the lionfishes and sculpins, but have also been called the Scleroparei. It is one of the five largest orders of bony fishes by number of species, with over 1,320.
They are ...
by 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 ...
''.FishBase
FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web. , regard the taxon as a 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 ...
Scorpaenoidei
Scorpaenoidei is a suborder of ray-finned fishes, part of the order Scorpaeniformes, that includes the scorpionfishes, lionfishes and velvetfishes. This suborder is at its most diverse in the Pacific and Indian Oceans but is also found in the A ...
, part of the Perciformes
Perciformes (), also called the Percomorpha or Acanthopteri, is an order or superorder of ray-finned fish. If considered a single order, they are the most numerous order of vertebrates, containing about 41% of all bony fish. Perciformes means ...
.[ The family name is derived from the genus name ''Neosebastes'' which is a compound of ''neo'' meaning "new" and ''Sebastes'', as, when he coined the name, ]Alphonse Guichenot
Antoine Alphonse Guichenot (31 July 1809 in Paris – 17 February 1876 in Cluny) was a French zoology, zoologist who taught, researched, and participated in specimen collecting trips on behalf of the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' (P ...
thought that the new genus was closely related to or was a subgenus of the genus ''Sebastes
''Sebastes'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the subfamily Sebastinae part of the family Scorpaenidae, most of which have the common name of rockfish. A few are called ocean perch, sea perch or redfish instead. They are found i ...
''.
Genera
There are two genera which are classified in the Neosebastinae:
Characteristics
Neosebastinae, the gurnard perches, have a prominent head with large eyes and a large mouth. There are strong bony ridges and spines on the head and cheeks. Much of the body and head are covered in rough ctenoid scales. They have 13 long and robust venom bearing spines in the 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 ...
and 6-8 soft rays.total 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 ...
of in the bighead gurnard perch (''Neosebastes pandus'') down to a maximum total length of in Whitley's gurnard perch (''Maxillicosta whitleyi'').[
]
Distribution, habitat and biology
Neosebastinae are found in the eastern Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean where they have an antiequatorial distribution in temperate and subtropical waters either side of the equator. They are benthic fishes living on soft substrates and feed on small fishes and crustaceans.[ They are oviparous, and, in at least ''N. pandus'' the females are larger than the males and the larger females have higher fecundity,]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q150746
Ray-finned fish families