Gigantactis vanhoeffeni
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Gigantactis vanhoeffeni | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Lophiiformes |
| Family: | Gigantactinidae |
| Genus: | Gigantactis |
| Species: | G. vanhoeffeni |
| Binomial name | |
| Gigantactis vanhoeffeni Brauer, 1902 | |
| Synonyms[2] | |
Gigantactis vanhoeffeni is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Gigantactinidae, the whipnose anglers. This species has a circumglobal distribution in the deeper waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Gigantactis vanhoeffeni was first formally described in 1902 by the German zoologist August Brauer with its type locality given as east of Zanzibar at 5°42'S, 43°36'E in the western Indian Ocean.[3] When he described G. vanhoeffeni Brauer proposed a new monospecific genus, Gigantactis, meaning that this species is the type species of that genus by monotypy.[4] This genus is classified by the 5th edition of Fishes of the World within the family Gigantactinidae, a family within the suborder Ceratioidei, the deep sea anglerfishes of the order Lophiiformes, the anglerfishes.[5]
Etymology
Gigantactis vanhoeffeni is a member of the genus Giganactis, the name of which is a combination of gigantos, meaning "giant", with actis, which means "ray", an allusion to its unusually long illicium. The specific name honours Ernst Vanhöffen, a German zoologist who studied jellyfish on the Valdivia Expedition.[6]