Oneirodes

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Oneirodes
Oneirodes eschrichtii
Oneirodes sp.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Lophiiformes
Family: Oneirodidae
Genus: Oneirodes
Lütken, 1871
Type species
Oneirodes eschrichtii
Lütken, 1871
Synonyms

Oneirodes is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Oneirodidae, the dreamers, a family of deep sea anglerfishes. These predatory, deep-sea fishes are found around the world. This is the type genus, and the most speciose genus, of the family Oneirodidae. They are sexually dimorphic but, like most taxa within their family, the small males are free living and are not sexual parasites on the larger females. Only the females are used to identify the species in this genus as no species specific characters have been found for males.

Oneirodes was first proposed proposed as a monospecific genus in 1871 by the Danish zoologist and naturalist Christian Frederik Lütken when he described Oneirodes eschrichtii.[1] Lütken gave the type locality of O. eschrichtii as off the western coast of Greenland.[2] The 5th edition of Fishes of the World classifies this genus in the family Oneirodidae in the suborder Ceratioidei of the anglerfish order Lophiiformes.[3] Theodore Gill named the family Oneirodidae in 1878[4] with O. escherichtii as its only species, making Oneirodes the type genus of its family.[5]

Etymology

Oneirodes means "dream-like". Lütken did not explain this choice of name. David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann suggested in 1898 that the name referred to the small, skin-covered eyes. Alternatively, in 2009, Theodore Wells Pietsch III proposed that the name was given because the fish is "so strange and marvelous that it could only be imagined in the dark of the night during a state of unconsciousness”.[6]

Species

Oneirodes is the most speciose genus in the family Oneirodidae and has the following species classified within it:[7]

A fossil member of this genus was found from Miocene-aged deposits of Sakhalin Island.[11]

Characteristics

Distribution and habitat

References

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