Hemiramphidae is a family of fishes that are commonly called halfbeaks, spipe fish or spipefish. They are a geographically widespread and numerically abundant family of epipelagic fish inhabiting warm waters around the world. The halfbeaks are named for their distinctive jaws, in which the lower jaws are significantly longer than the upper jaws. The similar viviparous halfbeaks have often been included in this family.
Beloniformes is an order composed of six families of freshwater and marine ray-finned fish:
The wrestling halfbeak also known as Malayan halfbeak is a species of viviparous halfbeak native to the fresh and brackish waters of rivers and coastal regions in South-East Asia, in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra. It is a small, slender, livebearing fish, with the elongated lower jaw characteristic of its family. The colour of this species varies, depending on where the specimen is found. It is the type species of the genus Dermogenys.
The ballyhoo halfbeak or ballyhoo is a baitfish of the halfbeak family (Hemiramphidae). It is similar to the Balao halfbeak in most features. Ballyhoo are frequently used as cut bait and for trolling purposes by saltwater sportsmen. The fish is reported to have caused ciguatera poisoning in humans.
The Dussumier's halfbeak, also known as the slender garfish, lives in reefs and shallow lagoons. It is an Indo-Pacific species which is found from the Seychelles east to the Tuamotu Islands, north to Hong Kong and Okinawa and south to northern Australia. They form schools which are found near the surface of lagoons and seaward reefs. The longest known specimen was 38.0 cm in length. This species was described by Achille Valenciennes in 1847 with the type locality given as the Seychelles. The specific name honours the French voyager and merchant Jean-Jacques Dussumier (1792-1883).
Crenimugil is a genus of mullets found in coastal marine waters and rivers in the Indo-Pacific region.
Cephalopholis is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, groupers from the subfamily Epinephelinae in the family Serranidae, which also includes the anthias and sea basses. Many of the species have the word "hind" as part of their common name in English.
Belone is a genus of needlefish common in brackish and marine waters. It is one of ten genera in the family Belonidae.
The Balao halfbeak, occasionally called the Balao for short, is an ocean-going species of fish in the family Hemiramphidae. It was first described by the French naturalist Charles Alexandre Lesueur in 1821. They are used as cut bait and for trolling purposes by saltwater sportsmen.
Hyporhamphus is a genus of halfbeaks. The species in this genus are distributed throughout the warmer seas of the world, most species being Indo-Pacific and there are some freshwater species.
Bangana is a genus of fish in the family Cyprinidae, the carps and minnows. It is distributed across much of southern and eastern Asia. Species live mainly in the flowing waters of tropical and subtropical rivers.
Oxyporhamphus micropterus is a species of halfbeak found in the tropical oceans. Some sources elevate the two subspecies to species rank. Others classify it in the monotypic genus Oxyporhamphus. This taxon is found in the Indo-Pacific region where it is a pelagic, oceanodromous species. It was described by Achille Valenciennes as Exocoetus micropterus in 1847, with the type locality of King George Sound, Western Australia.
Oxyporhamphus is a genus of halfbeaks from the family Hemiramphidae. This genus contains two species, one in the warmer waters of the Atlantic and the other in the Indo-Pacific region.
Rhynchorhamphus georgii or long-billed halfbeak is a halfbeak of the family Hemiramphidae of the order Beloniformes.
Hyporhamphus yuri is a halfbeak from the family Hemiramphidae which has been reported from Okinawa and nearby islands in the north-west Pacific Ocean. This species was described by Bruce Baden Collette & Nikolai Vasilyevich Parin in 1978 from a type obtained at the Naha Market in Okinawa. The specific name honours the Russian ichthyologist Yuri Nikolayevich Shcherbachev of the Institute of Oceanology, Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Chlorurus is a genus of parrotfish from the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Kyphosus is a genus of sea chubs native to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. It is the only genus in the subfamily Kyphosinae of the family Kyphosidae.
Arrhamphus krefftii, the snub-nosed garfish, is a species of halfbeak in the genus Arrhamphus found in coastal waters of Australia from south of Rockhampton in Queensland to Sydney. The identity of the person honoured in the specific name is uncertain but it is thought that it may be the Australian zoologist and paleontologist Gerard Krefft (1830–1881). This species was previously classified as a subspecies of Arrhamphus sclerolepis, and remains so according to some authorities. This species is a herbivore and eats seagrass during the day. At night, it is a carnivore, eating mainly crustaceans.
Oxyporhamphus similis, the false halfbeak, is a species of halfbeak from the family Hemiramphidae which is found in the warmer waters of the Atlantic. In the eastern Atlantic its distribution extends from Cape Verde to Angola while in the western Atlantic it occurs from New York State south through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico to Recife in Brazil. This species was described by the Danish ichthyologist Anton Frederik Bruun in 1935,
The channelled rockfish, commonly known as the deepwater scorpionfish, is a marine ray-finned fish belonging to the subfamily Setarchinae, which is a part of the family Scorpaenidae. This species is found in various tropical and subtropical oceans and has a wide distribution.
