''Scorpaenopsis'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of marine

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 ...

belonging to 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 ...

, the scorpionfishes. The fishes in this genus 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 Ocean 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 ...

Taxonomy

''Scorpaenopsis'' was first formally described as a genus in 1837 by the Austrian

taxidermist Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body via mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proce ...

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

, and

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 ...

Johann Jakob Heckel Johann Jakob Heckel (23 January 1790 – 1 March 1857) was an Austrian taxidermist, zoologist, and ichthyologist from Mannheim in the Electoral Palatinate. Life Though not a formally trained biologist, he worked his way up through the ranks to ev ...

. In 1876

Pieter Bleeker Pieter Bleeker (10 July 1819 – 24 January 1878) was a Dutch medical doctor, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. He was famous for the ''Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales Néêrlandaises'', his monumental work on the fishes of East Asia ...

designated ''Scorpaena nesogallica'', which had been described in 1829 by

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...

from Mauritius, as its

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. ''S. nesogallica'' was later shown to be a

junior synonym The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...

of ''Scorpaena gibbosa'' which had been described by

Marcus Elieser Bloch Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German physician and naturalist who is best known for his contribution to ichthyology through his multi-volume catalog of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. Brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish ...

and

Johann Gottlob Schneider Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider (18 January 1750 – 12 January 1822) was a German Empire, German classicist and natural history, naturalist. Biography Schneider was born at Collm in Saxony. In 1774, on the recommendation of Christian Gottlob ...

in 1801 with "America" erroneously given as the type locality of this Indian Ocean species. This genus is classified within the

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

Scorpaenini Scorpaenini is a tribe of marine ray-finned fishes, one of two tribes in the subfamily Scorpaeninae. This tribe contains the "typical" or "true" scorpionfishes. The taxonomy of the scorpionfishes is in some flux, the 5th Edition of Fishes of the W ...

, in the

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 ...

Scorpaeninae Scorpaeninae is a subfamily of ray-finned fish belonging to the family Scorpaenidae in the order Scorpaeniformes, it includes the scorpionfishes, the lionfishes and turkeyfishes. They bear venomous spines in the anal, dorsal and pelvic fins which ...

of the family Scorpaenidae. The genus name ''Scorpaenopsis'' means "having the appearance of ''

Scorpaena ''Scorpaena'' is a widespread genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Scorpaenidae, the scorpionfishes. Taxonomy ''Scorpaena'' was first described as a genus in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th Edition of his ''Systema Naturae ...

'', the genus the type species was originally classified within.

Species

The 28 recognized species in this genus are: * '' Scorpaenopsis altirostris'' C. H. Gilbert, 1905 * '' Scorpaenopsis barbata'' ( Rüppell, 1838) (bearded scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis brevifrons'' Eschmeyer & J. E. Randall, 1975 (bigmouth scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis cacopsis'' O. P. Jenkins, 1901 (Jenkins' scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis cirrosa'' ( Thunberg, 1793) (weedy stingfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis cotticeps'' Fowler, 1938 (sculpin scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis crenulata'' Motomura &

Causse The Causses () are a group of limestone plateaus (700–1,200 m) in the Massif Central. They are bordered to the north-west by the Limousin and the Périgord uplands, and to the east by the Aubrac and the Cévennes. Large river gorges cut through ...

, 2011 (serrated deepwater scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis diabolus'' (G. Cuvier, 1829) (false stonefish) * '' Scorpaenopsis eschmeyeri'' J. E. Randall & D. W. Greenfield, 2004 * '' Scorpaenopsis furneauxi'' Whitley, 1959 (Furneaux scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis gibbosa'' (Bloch & J. G. Schneider, 1801) (humpbacked scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis gilchristi'' ( J. L. B. Smith, 1957) (Gilchrist's scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis insperatus'' Motomura, 2004 (Sydney scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis lactomaculata'' ( Herre, 1945) (whiteblotched scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis longispina'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001 * '' Scorpaenopsis macrochir'' J. D. Ogilby, 1910 (flasher scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis neglecta'' Heckel, 1837 (yellowfin scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis obtusa'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001 (shortsnout scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis orientalis'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001 * ''

Scorpaenopsis oxycephala ''Scorpaenopsis oxycephala'', the tasseled scorpionfish, or small-scaled scorpionfish, is a species of venomous marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Scorpaenidae, the scorpionfishes. It has a wide distribution in the Indian and Pacific ...

'' (Bleeker, 1849) (tasseled scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis papuensis'' (G. Cuvier, 1829) (Papuan scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis pluralis'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001 * '' Scorpaenopsis possi'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001 * '' Scorpaenopsis pusilla'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001 * '' Scorpaenopsis ramaraoi'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001 * '' Scorpaenopsis rubrimarginata'' R. Fricke, Durville & Mulochau, 2013 * '' Scorpaenopsis venosa'' (G. Cuvier, 1829) (raggy scorpionfish) * '' Scorpaenopsis vittapinna'' J. E. Randall & Eschmeyer, 2001

Characteristics

''Scorpaenopsis'' scorpionfishes are characterised by having 12 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 3 spines in 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 ...

. The do not have any teeth on the

palatine A palatine or palatinus (in Latin; plural ''palatini''; cf. derivative spellings below) is a high-level official attached to imperial or royal courts in Europe since Roman times.

. They have some black colouration between the first and the third spines in the dorsal fin. They have a strongly compressed head and no less than 3 suborbital spines. The smallest species is ''S. rubrimarginata'' which has a maximum

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 the false stonefish (''S. diabolus'').

Distribution

Scorpaenopsis scorpionfishes are found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the Red Sea and the coasts of Eastern Africa into the Pacific where it extends as Far East as

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, north to Japan and south to Australia.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2301050 Scorpaenini Venomous fish Marine fish genera Taxa named by Johann Jakob Heckel