Blepsias Explained

Blepsias is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Agonidae, the poachers and related fishes. These fishes are found in the coastal northern Pacific Ocean from Japan to California.

Taxonomy

Blepsias was first proposed as a genus by the French zoologist Georges Cuvier with Trachinus cirrhosus, which had originally been described in 1814 by Peter Simon Pallas from Kamchatka, as the type species. The genus is included in the subfamily Hemitripterinae of the family Agonidae.[1] Cuvier used a Greek name for a fish, as was his habit, for the name of the new genus.[2]

Species

The recognized species in this genus are:

Characteristics

Blepsias has a spiny preoperculum, a compressed head, with armoured cheeks and palatine teeth. The large pectoral fins have the lower rays separate from the fin membrane. There are fleshy flaps which hang from the snout. The compressed head separate Blepsias from Hemitripterus.[3] These fishes have maximum published standard lengths of in the case of B. cirrhosus and in B. bilobus.

Distribution and habitat

Blepsias sculpins are found in the North Pacific and the adjacent Arctic waters from Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk north to the Chukchi and Bering seas to central California.[4] They are demersal fishes of shallow, even intertidal, waters where there is algae.

Notes and References

  1. Book: Fishes of the World . 5th . J. S. Nelson . T. C. Grande . M. V. H. Wilson . 2016 . 467–495 . Wiley . 978-1-118-34233-6 . 2022-12-30 . 2019-04-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190408194051/https://sites.google.com/site/fotw5th/ . dead .
  2. Web site: Order Perciformes: Suborder Cottoidea: Infraorder Cottales: Families Trichodontidae, Jordaniidae, Rhamphocottidae, Scorpaenichthyidae and Agonidae . The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database . Christopher Scharpf . Kenneth J. Lazara . amp . 22 October 2022 . 29 December 2022 . Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara.
  3. Book: Cuvier, G. . A. Valenciennes . and . 1829 . Histoire naturelle des poissons. Tome quatrième. Livre quatrième. Des acanthoptérygiens à joue cuirassée . t.4 . Fr.
  4. Mecklenburg, C. W. . 2003 . Family Hemitripteridae Gill 1872 — sea ravens or sailfin sculpins . California Academy of Sciences Annotated Checklists of Fishes . 5 .