The silver arowana is a South American freshwater bony fish of the family Osteoglossidae. Silver arowanas are sometimes kept in aquariums, but they are predatory and require a very large tank.
The Asian arowana comprises several phenotypic varieties of freshwater fish distributed geographically across Southeast Asia. While most consider the different varieties to belong to a single species, work by Pouyaud et al. (2003) differentiates these varieties into multiple species. They have several other common names, including Asian bonytongue, dragonfish, and a number of names specific to the different color varieties.
Scleropages jardinii, the Gulf saratoga, Australian bonytongue, pearl arowana or northern saratoga, is a freshwater bony fish native to Australia and New Guinea, one of two species of fishes sometimes known as Australian arowana, the other being Scleropages leichardti. It has numerous other common names, including northern saratoga, toga and barramundi. It is a member of the subfamily Osteoglossinae, a (basal) teleost group. Its scientific name is sometimes spelled S. jardini.
The arapaima, pirarucu, or paiche is any large species of bonytongue in the genus Arapaima native to the Amazon and Essequibo basins of South America. Arapaima is the type genus of the subfamily Arapaiminae within the family Osteoglossidae. They are among the world's largest freshwater fish, reaching as much as 3 m (9.8 ft) in length. They are an important food fish. They have declined in the native range due to overfishing and habitat loss. In contrast, arapaima have been introduced to several tropical regions outside the native range, where they are sometimes considered invasive species. In Kerala, India, arapaima escaped from aquaculture ponds after floods in 2018. Its Portuguese name, pirarucu, derives from the Tupi language words pira and urucum, meaning "red fish".
Osteoglossidae is a family of large-sized freshwater fish, which includes the arowanas and arapaima. They are commonly known as bonytongues. The family contains two extant subfamilies Arapaiminae and Osteoglossinae, with a total of five living genera. The extinct Phareodontinae are known from worldwide during the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene; they are generally considered to be crown group osteoglossids that are more closely related to one of the extant osteoglossid subfamilies than the other, though their exact position varies.
Osteoglossum is a genus of fish in the family Osteoglossidae. They reach about 1 m (3.3 ft) in length and are restricted to freshwater habitats in tropical South America.
Scleropages is a genus of fish in the family Osteoglossidae found in Asia and Australia. All of these species are carnivorous and have great jumping ability. These species are highly valued as aquarium fish, particularly by those from Asian cultures. In 2003, a study redescribed several naturally occurring color varieties of S. formosus into four separate species. The majority of researchers dispute these redescriptions, arguing that the published data are insufficient to justify recognizing more than one Southeast Asian species of Scleropages and that divergent haplotypes used to distinguish the color strains into isolated species were found within a single color strain, contradicting the findings. They are considered monotypic, consisting of closely related haplotypes based on color. The ancestor of the Australian arowanas: S. jardinii and S. leichardti, diverged from the ancestor of the Asian arowanas about 140 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period. The morphological similarity of all seven species shows that little evolutionary change has taken place recently for these ancient fish. The genus had a much wider distribution during the early Cenozoic, with fossil remains known from the Paleocene of Niger and Belgium, and from the Eocene of China.
Pantodontidae is a family of ray-finned fish in the order Osteoglossiformes. It contains the living freshwater butterflyfish of Africa, as well as several extinct marine species from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of the Sannine Formation in Lebanon.
The southern saratoga, also known as the spotted bonytongue, spotted saratoga, or simply saratoga, is a freshwater bony fish native to Australia. It belongs to the subfamily Osteoglossinae, or arowanas, a primitive group of teleosts. Like all arowanas, it is a carnivorous mouthbrooder. Along with the gulf saratoga, the saratoga is also known as the Australian arowana and barramundi, although the latter name is nowadays reserved in Australia for the unrelated Lates calcarifer.
Lycoptera is an extinct genus of fish that lived from Lower Cretaceous, Barremian to Aptian in present-day China, North Korea, Mongolia and Siberia. Although there is record from Jurassic Formation in Siberia, its age remains questionable. It is known from abundant fossils representing sixteen species, which serve as important index fossil used to date geologic formations in China. Along with the genus Peipiaosteus, Lycoptera has been considered a defining member of the Jehol Biota, a prehistoric ecosystem famous for its feathered dinosaurs, which flourished for 20 million years during the Early Cretaceous, where it occurs abundantly in often monospecific beds, where they are thought to have died in seasonal mass death events. Lycoptera is a crown group teleost belonging to an early diverging lineage of the Osteoglossomorpha, which contains living mooneyes, arapaima, arowana, elephantfish and knifefish/featherbacks.
Belonostomus is a genus of prehistoric ray-finned fish that was described by Louis Agassiz in 1844. It is a member of the order Aspidorhynchiformes, a group of fish known for their distinctive elongated rostrums.
Pycnodontiformes is an extinct order of primarily marine bony fish. The group first appeared during the Late Triassic and disappeared during the Eocene. The group has been found in rock formations in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.
Opsithrissops is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish that lived during the Thanetian stage of the Paleocene epoch. It is a 120 centimetres (3.9 ft) fish in the family Osteoglossiformes which includes other bony-tongues such as the extant species of arowana and arapaima.
Anaethalion is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine and freshwater ray-finned fish related to modern tarpons and ladyfish. It is known from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous of Europe and northeasterrn Asia, roughly encompassing the Tethys Ocean.
Brychaetus is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine bonytongue fish known from the Late Cretaceous to the late Eocene of Europe, North America, and northern Africa.
Coccolepis is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine ray-finned fish in the family Coccolepididae. Originally including most species within the family, it is now restricted to two species from the Late Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone of Germany. The holotype of C. bucklandi, designated and described by Louis Agassiz, was thought to be lost but was later rediscovered in Neuchâtel.
Crossognathiformes is an extinct order of ray-finned fish that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Eocene. Its phylogenetic placement is disputed; some authors have recovered it as part of the teleost stem group, while others place it in a basal position within crown group Teleostei. Other placements have found it to be paraphyletic, with the Varasichthyidae being stem-group teleosts whereas the other, "true" crossognathiforms are crown-group teleosts within the Teleocephala.
Arapaiminae is a subfamily of freshwater osteoglossiform (bony-tongued) fishes belonging to the family Osteoglossidae. It includes the South American arapaimas of the Amazon and Essequibo basins and the African arowana from the watersheds of the Sahelo-Sudanese region, Senegal, Gambia, and parts of Eastern Africa. This subfamily is sometimes raised to the rank of family, as Arapaimidae. A commonly used synonym is Heterotidinae, but according to the ICZN, Arapaiminae has priority.
Pycnodontidae is an extinct family of ray-finned fishes, ranging from the Jurassic period until the Eocene. It was the largest and most derived family of the successful Mesozoic fish order Pycnodontiformes, and one of only two families to survive into the Cenozoic.
Coccolepididae is an extinct family of ray-finned fish, known from the Early Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, most of which were originally referred to the type genus Coccolepis. They had a widespread distribution, being found in North and South America, Australia, Asia and Europe. They are mostly known from freshwater environments, though several species have been found in marine environments. They are morphologically conservative, and have poorly ossified endo and exoskeletons, which usually results in poor preservation. This makes it difficult to distinguish species. They are generally small fish, with the largest known specimens reaching a length of 210 mm. Historically, they have been classified as members of “Palaeonisciformes”, a paraphyletic grouping of non-neopterygian fish, due to their plesiomorphic conservative morphology closely resembling those of many other groups of primitive fish. Some recent authors have suggested that they may belong to the order Chondrostei as relatives of the Acipenseriformes.
