Tetraroginae
family of fishes
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 West Pacific. As their name suggests, waspfishes are often venomous; having poison glands on their spines. They are bottom-dwelling fish, living at depths to 300 metres (980 ft). These creatures usually live in hiding places on the sea bottom.
Taxonomy and etymology
Tetraroginae, or Tetrarogidae, was first formally recognised as a taxonomic grouping in 1949 by the South African ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith. The 5th edition of Fishes of the World treats this as a subfamily of the scorpionfish family Scorpaenidae, however other authorities treat it as a valid family, the Tetrarogidae. A recent study placed the waspfishes into an expanded stonefish clade, within the family Synanceiidae, because all of these fish have a lachrymal sabre that can project a switch-blade-like mechanism out from underneath their eye.
The name of the subfamily is based on the genus name Tetraroge, which was described in 1860 by Albert Günther and its name means "four clefts", an allusion to the four clfts in the gills in comparison to the five clefts in the gills of Pentaroge, now regarded as a synonym of Gymnapistes.
Genera
The following genera are classified within the subfamily Tetraroginae:
Genus Ablabys Kaup, 1873
Genus Centropogon Gunther, 1860
Genus Coccotropsis Barnard, 1927
Genus Cottapistus Bleeker, 1876
Genus Glyptauchen Gunther, 1860
Genus Gymnapistes Swainson, 1839
Genus Liocranium Ogilby, 1903
Genus Neocentropogon Matsubara, 1943
Genus Neovespicula Mandrytsa, 2001
Genus Notesthes Ogilby, 1903
Genus Ocosia Jordan & Starks, 1904
Genus Paracentropogon Bleeker, 1876
Genus Pseudovespicula Mandrytsa, 2001
Genus Richardsonichthys J. L. B. Smith, 1958
Genus Snyderina Jordan & Starks, 1901
Genus Tetraroge Gunther, 1860
Genus Vespicula Jordan & Richardson, 1910
The genus Vespicula is not universally recognised, its type species is Apistus trachinoides, which some workers have placed in the monotypic genus Trichosomus Swainson, 1839 with the two remaining species being classified within the genus Pseudovespicula.
“Tetraroginae” enters the record as family of fishes. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tetraroginae, family and fishes can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tetraroginae” 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.