Percopsidae is a family of fish in the order
Percopsiformes
The Percopsiformes are a small order of ray-finned fishes, comprising the trout-perch and its allies. It contains just ten extant species, grouped into seven genera and three families. Five of these genera are monotypic
In biology, a mono ...
, with one
extant genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
with two species, both
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
to
North America, and two known fossil genera.
They are small fish with weak fin spines, and an
adipose 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 ...
similar to those of
trout
Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...
. They feed on insects and small
crustaceans
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean gro ...
.
References
Trout-perch article by Robert G. BramblettSpecies summary ''Percopsis transmontana'' sand roller
Percopsiformes
Fish of North America
Ray-finned fish families
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