Family of fishes
Caproidae, or boarfishes, are a small family of marine fishes comprising two genera and 19 species. These fishes are found throughout the world in temperate and tropical seas.
Taxonomy.
Caproidae was first proposed as a family in 1835 by the French naturalist and ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. Caproidae was formerly placed in the order Zeiformes with the dories, but were later moved to Perciformes based on percoid characteristics of the caudal skeleton and other morphological evidence. More recent revisions of Percomorpha have seen them placed in Caproiformes or Acanthuriformes.
Etymology.
Caproidae comes from the genus name "Capros" which is derived from the Greek word "kapros" meanin "boar". This is a reference to the rather cylindrical snout, ending in a small mouth with a protrusible upper lip which Bonaparte thought had some resemblance to snout of a pig or boar.
Genera.
Caproidae contains the following subfamilies and genera:
Characteristics.
Caproidae are characterised by small ctenoid scales covering the body. They have between 7 and 9 spines in the dorsal fin, there are 2 or 3 spines in the anal fin while the pelvic fins have one spine and five soft rays. The caudal fin is rounded. They have an obvious sagittal crest and pleural ribs. The vertebrate count is 21 to 23. These are small fishes with the largest species being the deepbody boarfish ("Antigonia capros") which has a maximum published total length of , although the boarfish ("Capros aper"), at , is nearly as long. The smallest species is "Antigonia kenyae" with a maximum published standard length of .
Distribution.
Caproidae species are found in all the temperate and tropical regions of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
References.
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