Rhamphocottidae is a

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

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 h ...

es belonging to the superfamily

Cottoidea A sculpin is a type of fish that belongs to the superfamily Cottoidea in the order Scorpaeniformes.Kane, E. A. and T. E. Higham. (2012)Life in the flow lane: differences in pectoral fin morphology suggest transitions in station-holding demand a ...

, the sculpins. The species in this family occur in the North Pacific Ocean.

Taxonomy

Rhamphocottidae was first proposed as a family by the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan 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 fishery biologist of particular significance to natural history of the western United States. He c ...

in 1883. The family was regarded as

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

until 2014 when the family Ereunidae was synonymised with it. This family is classified within the superfamily Cottoidea in the suborder

Cottoidei Cottoidei is a suborder of ray-finned fishes which, according to the 5th edition of ''Fishes of the World'', is placed within the order Scorpaeniformes, alongside the scorpionfishes, flatheads, eelpouts, sticklebacks and related fishes. Taxono ...

in 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 ...

in the 5th edition of '' Fishes of the World'' but other authorities states that if Scorpaeniformes is excluded from

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 ...

then Perciformes is recovered as paraphyletic and so classify this family within the

infraorder 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 ...

Cottales within the suborder Cottoidei of the Perciformes. Within the Cottoidea the Ramphocottidae is the

sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to all the other groups.

Genera

Rhamphocottidae contains the following genera:

Characteristics

Rhamphocottidae sculpins have a single pharyngobranchial bone. In the

pectoral 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 ...

s several of the lower pectoral rays are separated from the upper lobe and are free of the fin membrane. There are fin stays in the

dorsal Dorsal (from Latin ''dorsum'' ‘back’) may refer to: * Dorsal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location referring to the back or upper side of an organism or parts of an organism * Dorsal, positioned on top of an aircraft's fuselage * Dorsal c ...

and anal fin. The tail has all parts of the hypural and parhypural fused into a single complex structure. The smallest species is the grunt sculpin (''Rhamphocottus richardsonii'') with a amximum published

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 while the largest is ''Ereunias grallator'' which reaches a maximum published total length of .

Distribution and habitat

Rhamphocottidae are found in the North Pacific Ocean where they are found from Japan along the Asian coasts to Alaska and south to California. These are demeral or bathydemersal fishes with the grunt sculpin being a species of intertidal and subtidal regions but they other species being deep water fishes.

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q13721408 Cottoidea Taxa named by David Starr Jordan Taxa named by Charles Henry Gilbert Ray-finned fish families