Codlets are a family, Bregmacerotidae, of cod-like fishes, containing the single genus ''Bregmaceros'' found in

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also refer ...

and

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Geographical z ...

waters throughout the world. They are very small fishes and even the largest, ''B. lanceolatus'', reaches only in length.

Etymology

Their scientific name is from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''bregma'' meaning the top of the head, and ''keras'' meaning "horn"; this refers to their occipital ray (a spine emerging from the top of the head).

Fossil record

Fossils of ''Bregmaceros'' are found from the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "da ...

to the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million yea ...

(age range: from 37.2 to 0.0 million years ago.). They are known from various localities in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the C ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

Species

Currently, 14 species in this genus are recognized: * '' Bregmaceros arabicus'' D'Ancona & Cavinato, 1965 * '' Bregmaceros atlanticus'' Goode &

Bean A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes thr ...

, 1886 (antenna codlet) * '' Bregmaceros bathymaster'' D. S. Jordan & Bollman, 1890 (codlet) * '' Bregmaceros cantori'' Milliken & Houde, 1984 (striped codlet) * '' Bregmaceros cayorum'' Nichols, 1952 * '' Bregmaceros houdei'' Saksena & Richards, 1986 (stellate codlet) * '' Bregmaceros japonicus'' S. Tanaka (I), 1908 (Japanese codlet) * '' Bregmaceros lanceolatus'' S. C. Shen, 1960 * '' Bregmaceros mcclellandi'' W. Thompson, 1840 (spotted codlet, Macclelland's unicorn-cod, unicorn cod) * '' Bregmaceros nectabanus'' Whitley, 1941 (smallscale codlet) * '' Bregmaceros neonectabanus'' S. Masuda, Ozawa & Tabeta, 1986 * '' Bregmaceros pescadorus'' S. C. Shen, 1960 * '' Bregmaceros pseudolanceolatus''

Torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simplest ...

, Javonillo & Ozawa, 2004 (false lance codlet) * '' Bregmaceros rarisquamosus'' Munro, 1950 (big-eye unicorn-cod)

References

* Bregmacerotidae {{Gadiformes-stub