Crestfish

Crestfishes Temporal range: Eocene–present PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
North Pacific crestfish Lophotus capellei
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Lampriformes
Family:	Lophotidae Bonaparte, 1845
Genera
Eumecichthys Lophotus † Babelichthys [1] † Eolophotes [2] † Protolophotus [3] † Oligolophotes [4]

Crestfishes, family Lophotidae, are lampriform fishes found in most oceans. ^[5] It consists of two extant ^{[5] [6]} and four extinct genera. ^[1]

They are elongated, ribbon-like fishes, silver in color, found in deep tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. Their scientific name is from Greek lophos meaning "crest" and refer to the crest (part of the dorsal fin) that emerges from the snout and head; this structure gives them their other name of unicorn fishes.

The extant genera all possess ink sacs that open into their cloacae from which they can produce a cloud of black ink when threatened (as in many cephalopods). ^[7]

Genera

Extant Genera	Image
Eumecichthys	Unicorn crestfish (E. fiski)
Lophotus	Crested bandfish (L. guntheri)
Fossil Genera	Image
† Babelichthys	†Babelichthys olneyi
† Eolophotes	† Eolophotes lenis
† Protolophotus	† Protolophotus elami
† Oligolophotes	† Oligolophotes fragosus

References

1. Davesne, D. (2017). "A fossil unicorn crestfish (Teleostei, Lampridiformes, Lophotidae) from the Eocene of Iran". PeerJ. 5 e3381. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3381 . PMC   5493034 . PMID   28674642.
2. Daniltshenko, P. G. (1980). "Iskopayemyye kostistyye ryby SSSR [Fossil bony fishes of the USSR]". Trudy Paleontologicheskogo Instituta, Akademiya Nauk CCCP. 178.
3. Walters, V. (1957). "Protolophotus, a new genus of allotriognath fish from the Oligocene of Iran". Copeia. 1 (1): 60–61. doi:10.2307/1440530. JSTOR   1440530.
4. Bannikov, A. F. (1999). "A review of fossil Lampridiformes (Teleostei) finds with a description of a new Lophotidae genus and species from the Oligocene of the northern Caucasus". Paleontological Journal. 33: 68–76.
5. Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Family Lophotidae". FishBase . November 2014 version.
6. Nelson, J. S. (2006). Fishes of the World (4 ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. p. 229. ISBN   978-0-471-25031-9.
7. Honma, Yoshiharu; Ushiki, Tatsuo; Takeda, Masaei (Feb 1999). "Histology of the ink tube and its associated organs in a unicornfish, Eumecichthys fiskii (Lampridiformes)". Ichthyological Research. 46 (1): 19–25. Bibcode:1999IchtR..46...19H. doi:10.1007/BF02674944. S2CID   25284408.