Order Scorpaeniformes - Scorpionfishes and their allies
Species within this Order are characterised by the presence of a bony ridge, or stay, extending across the suborbital cheek below the eye. The composition of the Order has been questioned by Imamura & Yabe (2002), who proposed that the order be split into two distantly related monophyletic groups. Monophyly of the group has been further challenged by molecular work (eg Smith & Wheeler 2004), but the resulting phylogeny is still under debate. We have chosen to follow Hoese et al. (2006) who retained the order as monophyletic until consensus is reached.
The Order contains a physically diverse collection of primarily marine species, a number of which, including Ocean Perches, Coral Perches and Flatheads, are commercially important. Some 20 families are currently recognised from Australian waters (Hoese et al., 2006).
Families in Australian waters:
- APISTIDAE
- APLOACTINIDAE
- BEMBRIDAE
- CARACANTHIDAE
- CONGIOPODIDAE
- COTTIDAE
- DACTYLOPTERIDAE
- GNATHANACANTHIDAE
- HOPLICHTHYIDAE
- LIPARIDAE
- NEOSEBASTIDAE
- PATAECIDAE
- PLATYCEPHALIDAE
- PSYCHROLUTIDAE
- SCORPAENIDAE
- SEBASTIDAE
- SETARCHIDAE
- SYNANCEIIDAE
- TETRAROGIDAE
- TRIGLIDAE
References
Eschmeyer, W.N. (2008) The Catalogue of Fishes on-line. (California Academy of Sciences: San Francisco) Available from: http://www.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp (12 June, 2008).
Hoese, D.F., Bray, D.J., Paxton, J.R. & Allen, G.R. (2006) Fishes. In: P.L. Beesley & A. Wells (eds) Zoological Catalogue of Australia Volume 35. Parts 1-3. Australian Biological Resources Study and CSIRO Publishing, 2248 pp.
Imamura, H. & Yabe, M. (2002). Demise of the Scorpaeniformes (Actinopterygii: Percomorpha): an alternative phylogenetic hypothesis. Bull. Fish. Sci. Hokkaido Univ. 53(3): 107-128.
Smith, W.L. & Wheeler, W.C. (2004) Polyphyly of the mail-cheeked fishes (Teleostei: Scorpaeniformes): evidence from mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 32: 627-646.