Genus of fishes
Megalocottus is a small genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Cottidae, the typical sculpins. These fishes are found in the western Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy.
"Megalocottus" was first proposed as a monospecific genus in 1861 by the American biologist Theodore Gill with "Cottus paltycephalus" which had been described in 1814 by Peter Simon Pallas from Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk as its only species. The 5th edition of "Fishes of the World" classifies this genus in the subfamily Cottinae of the family Cottidae but other authorities classify it in the subfamily Myoxocephalinae of the family Psychrolutidae, although others place the subfamily Myoxocephalinae within the Cottidae.
Etymology.
"Megalocottus" prefixes "megalo" meaning "great" or large" with Cottus, presumed to be a reference to the large size of the type species.
Species.
"Megalocottus" currently contains two recognized:
"Fishbase" retains these two species as valid, other authorities treat the Southern flathead sculpin as a subspecies of the belligerent sculpin while others treat it as a "M. taeniopterus" as a junior synonym of "M. platycephalus". This taxon is a sister taxon to the genus "Myoxocephalus".
In 2020 workers undertook a comparison of the Mitochondrial DNA of the fourhorn sculpin ("Myoxocephalus quadricornis") and the belligerent sculpin and found that the fourhorn sculpin was more closely related to the belligerent sculpin than it was to the other species in the genus "Myoxocephalus", they proposed that the fourhorn sculpin be reclassified as a member of the genus "Megalocottus".
References.
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