Ostracioidea or Ostracioidei, the boxfishes, is a

suborder Order () 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 recognized ...

of ray-finned fishes belonging to the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Tetraodontiformes Tetraodontiformes (), also known as the Plectognathi, is an order of ray-finned fishes which includes the pufferfishes and related taxa. This order has been classified as a suborder of the order Perciformes, although recent studies have found ...

, which also includes the

pufferfish Tetraodontidae is a family of marine and freshwater fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowers, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfis ...

es, filefishes and

triggerfish Triggerfish are about 40 species of often brightly colored marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Balistidae. Often marked by lines and spots, they inhabit tropical and subtropical oceans throughout the world, with the greatest speci ...

es. The fishes in this taxon are found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Taxonomy

Ostracioidea was named in 1810 by the French

polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; 22 October 178318 September 1840) was a French early 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ult ...

, and has been regarded as a family with the two extant families being regarded as subfamilies. However, recent

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

studies have concluded that the families Aracanidae and Ostraciidae are valid families but that they are part of the same clade. The 5th edition of ''

Fishes of the World ''Fishes of the World'' is a standard reference for the systematics of fishes. It was first written in 1976 by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011). Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of t ...

'' classifies this clade as the suborder Ostracioidea within the order Tetraodontiformes.

Etymology

Ostracioidea takes its name from the

type genus In biological taxonomy, the type genus (''genus typica'') is the genus which defines a biological family and the root of the family name. Zoological nomenclature According to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, "The name-bearin ...

, '' Ostracion'', of the family Ostraciidae. This name was proposed by

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in 1758 and means "little box" an allusion to the body shape of '' O. cubicus''.

Families

Ostracioidea contains two extant families and two extinct families: * Spinacanthidae Santini & Tyler, 2003 * Protobalistidae

Gill A gill () is a respiration organ, respiratory organ that many aquatic ecosystem, aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow r ...

, 1888 * Aracanidae Hollard, 1860 *

Ostraciidae Ostraciidae or Ostraciontidae is a family of squared, Actinopterygii, bony fish belonging to the order Tetraodontiformes, closely related to the pufferfishes and filefishes. Fish in the family are known variously as boxfishes, cofferfishes, cowfi ...

Rafinesque, 1810

Characteristics

Ostracioid boxfishes share the head and much of the body, apart from the cheeks, being encased in a carapace made up of thick, typically hexagonal, inflexible plate-like scales. These scales are interlinked by small finger like extensiosn along their margins. To the rear of the carapace there are isolated scale plates which vary in shape but there is no complete covering of scales. The cross section of the body shows slight lateral compression with at least two angles or ridges. There is no spiny

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

and the soft dorsal fin and

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

have short bases and are supported by 9 to 13 soft rays. They do not have a

pelvis The pelvis (: pelves or pelvises) is the lower part of an Anatomy, anatomical Trunk (anatomy), trunk, between the human abdomen, abdomen and the thighs (sometimes also called pelvic region), together with its embedded skeleton (sometimes also c ...

pelvic fin Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral (belly) surface of fish, and are the lower of the only two sets of paired fins (the other being the laterally positioned pectoral fins). The pelvic fins are homologous to the hi ...

s. There are between 6 and 17 teeth typically small, conical teeth arranged in a single series in each jaw, these are sometimes compressed at their bases and may taper at the tips. The largest species in the suborder are the scrawled cowfish (''Acanthostracion quadricornis'') and the buffalo trunkfish (''

Lactophrys trigonus ''Lactophrys trigonus'', the buffalo trunkfish or trunkfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Ostraciidae, the boxfishes. The buffalo trunkfish is found in the Western Atlantic Ocean. Taxonomy ''Lactophrys trigonu ...

'') each with a maximum published

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

of , while the smallest species are just above in length.

Distribution and habitat

Ostracioid boxfishes have distributions centred on the Indo-West Pacific region, especially around Australia, and the deepwater oxfishes of the family Aracanidae are restricted to that region. The boxfishes in the family Ostraciidae are more widespread and some species in this family are found in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans too. The deepwater boxfishes, or temperate, boxfishes live as their name suggests in deeper waters.

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q102208389 Tetraodontiformes Taxa named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque