waspfish
Tetraroginae is a subfamily of marine ray-finned fishes, commonly known as waspfishes or sailback scorpionfishes, belonging to the family Scorpaenidae, the scorpionfishes and their relatives. These fishes are native to the Indian Ocean and the W ...
es belonging to 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 ...
classified
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as part of the family
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 and their relatives. These fishes are native to the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean. Although FishBase recognises this genus as valid, other authorities, such as the '' Catalog of Fishes'' regard it as a synonym of '' Trichosomus''.
Taxonomy and etymology
''Vespicula'' was first described as a genus in 1910 by the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and Robert Earl Richardson as a monotypic genus containing only ''Prosopodasys gogorzae'', which they also designated the type species. ''P. gogorzae'' had been described by Jordan and Alvin Seale in 1905 from the
Negros
Negros is the fourth largest and third most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of . Negros is one of the many islands of the Visayas, in the central part of the country. The predominant inhabitants of the island region a ...
in the Philippines. This genus is included in the subfamily Tetraroginae within the Scorpaenidae in 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 ...
'' however other authorities place that subfamily within the stonefish family
Synanceiidae
Synanceiinae is a subfamily of venomous ray-finned fishes, waspfishes, which is classified as part of the family Scorpaenidae, the scorpionfishes and their relatives. These fishes are found in the Indo-Pacific oceans. They are primarily marin ...
, while other authorities classify this subfamily as a family in its own right.
In 2001 Sergey Anatolyevich Mandrytsa proposed that ''Prosopodasys'' was a synonym of ''Vespicula''. Various workers had then included the species ''Apistus bottae'', ''Apistus dracaena'', ''Prosopodasys cypho'', ''Apistes depressifrons'' , ''Apistus trachinoides'' and ''Apistus zollingeri'' in the genus ''Vespicula''. More recently ''A. depressifrons'' was placed in the monotypic genus ''
Neovespicula
The leaf goblinfish (''Neovespicula depressifrons'') is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a waspfish belonging to the subfamily Tetraroginae, which is classified as part of the family Scorpaenidae, the scorpionfishes and their relatives. T ...
'', ''A. dracaena'' in '' Pseudovespicula'', and ''A. trachinoides'' into '' Trichosomus'' with ''A. bottae'' and ''A. gogorzae'' being regarded as
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 ...
s of ''Trichosomus trachinoides''. As the type species of ''Vespicula'' is regarded as a junior synonym of ''T. trachinoides'', it follows that ''Vespicula'' is 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 ''Trichosomus''. This left ''P. cypho'' and ''A. zollingeri'' in ''Vespicula'' but these two species share a number of characteristics with ''P. dracaena'' so they were placed in an expanded ''Pseudovespicula''.
The genus name ''Vespicula'' is a diminutive of ''Vespa'', meaning wasp, i.e. a waspfish.
Species
''Vespicula'' contains the following 3 valid species according to
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.
G. Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in nat ...