Ptarmus
Genus of fishes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ptarmus is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, velvetfishes belonging to the family Aploactinidae. This genus is endemic to the waters of the western Indian Ocean.
| Ptarmus | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Family: | Synanceiidae |
| Subfamily: | Aploactininae |
| Genus: | Ptarmus J. L. B. Smith, 1947 |
| Type species | |
| Cocotropus jubatus J. L. B. Smith, 1935 | |
Taxonomy
Ptarmus was first described as a genus in 1947 by the South African ichthyologist James Leonard Brierley Smith as a monotypic genus for Coccotropus jubatus, which he had described in 1935 from the coast of modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.[1] Later the Red Sea endemic, Tetraroge gallus, which had been described in 1877 by Robby August Kossmann and H. Räuber from off Eritrea, was reclassified as Ptarmus gallus.[2] This genus is classified within the family Aploactinidae in the suborder Scorpaenoidei within the order Scorpaeniformes,[3] although this family is also treated as a subfamily of the stonefish family Synanceiidae[4][5] within the Scorpaenoidei, which in turn is treated as a superfamily within the order Perciformes.[6] The name of the genus, Ptarmus means "sneeze", an allusion not explained by Smith.[7]
Species
There are currently two recognized species in this genus:[8]
- Ptarmus gallus (Kossmann & Räuber, 1877)
- Ptarmus jubatus (J. L. B. Smith, 1935) (Crested scorpionfish)
