Notopteridae
family of fishes
The family Notopteridae contains 11 species of osteoglossiform (bony-tongued) fishes, commonly known as featherbacks and knifefishes. These fishes live in freshwater or brackish environments in Africa and West, South, East and Southeast Asia.
With the denotation of "knifefish", the notopterids should not be confused with Gymnotiformes, the electric knifefishes from South and Central America. Although their manner of swimming is similar and they are superficially similar in appearance, the two groups are not closely related.
A few of the larger species, especially Chitala ornata, are food fish and occasionally aquarium pets. The name is from Greek noton meaning "back" and pteron meaning "fin".
Fossils
The earliest fossil of this family is otolith of Notopteridarum from the Late Cretaceous of India, about 70.6 to 66 million years ago.
Description
Featherbacks have slender, elongated, bodies, giving them a knife-like appearance. The caudal fin is small and fused with the anal fin, which runs most of the length of the body. Where present, the dorsal fin is small and narrow, giving rise to the common name of "featherback".
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This entry incorporates text from “Notopteridae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.