The gnomefishes form a small

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 ...

, Scombropidae, consisting of three

extant Extant is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Extant taxon, a taxon which is not extinct, ...

species of marine

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

in the genus ''Scombrops''. They have two

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 and are notable for scales covering the soft parts of the dorsal 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 ...

s. The eyes are large. The gnomefish, ''S. boops'', lives in deep rocky areas, down to 400 m. It can grow to 150 cm total length and 16 kg weight. ''S. gilberti'' occurs in the western Pacific including Japan. The Atlantic scombrops, ''S. oculatus'', is widely found in the subtropical western Atlantic, particularly the

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

and

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

area. It is a deepwater fish, caught by anglers between 200 and 610 m.

Species

The following species are classified within the genus ''Scombrops'': *'' Scombrops boops'' ( Houttuyn, 1782) * '' Scombrops gilberti'' (

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

& Snyder, 1901) * '' Scombrops oculatus'' ( Poey, 1860) The Scombropidae have been put forward as 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 t ...

to the

Pempheridae Sweepers are small, tropical marine (occasionally brackish) perciform fish of the family Pempheridae. Found in the western Atlantic Ocean and Indo-Pacific region, the family contains about 26 species in two genera. One species (''Pempheris xan ...

by some authorities.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q1331715, from2=Q15740148 Scombropidae Extant Eocene first appearances