Blenniiformes
An order of percomorph fish including blennies and damselfish.
Last updated
Within the clade Ovalentaria, the percomorph fish order Blenniiformes stands as its most speciose group.[1] Damselfish and blennies are among the familiar fish categories that fall under this order.[1]
Scientific classification
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumChordata
- ClassActinopterygii
- DivisionTeleostei
- OrderBlenniiformes
Named by Bleeker, 1860
Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Blenniiformes (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Quick Facts
- Earliest known member
- Chaychanus (stem group-damselfish) from the Early Paleocene of Mexico
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
Earlier classifications, such as Fishes of the World, restricted Blenniiformes to blennies and their close relatives.[2] Those earlier classifications placed damselfishes, jawfishes, and surfperches as indeterminate members of Ovalentaria.[2] Phylogenetic evidence now suggests that these families form a successive grade leading to blennies.[2] Newer authorities such as Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes therefore include these families within Blenniiformes.[2]
Some studies also place Cichliformes and Mugiliformes within this order, though Catalog of Fishes does not follow that.[2] The 2016 edition of Fishes of the World was published by John Wiley & Sons and runs 752 pages.[3] The Perciformes originally contained most members of this group, a common placement for many percomorphs.[2] Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes lists the families it assigns to Blenniiformes.[1]
What the cited sources add
The 2016 edition of Fishes of the World, published by John Wiley & Sons, is a 752-page book that earlier defined Blenniiformes more narrowly.[3][2]
References
- Wikipedia, "Blenniiformes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fricke, "ESCHMEYER'S CATALOG OF FISHES: CLASSIFICATION", California Academy of Sciences, 2025 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Blenniiformes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Fishes of the World", Wiley, 2016, p. 348; Betancur-R, "Phylogenetic classification of bony fishes", BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2017-07-06, p. 162; Fricke, "ESCHMEYER'S CATALOG OF FISHES: CLASSIFICATION", California Academy of Sciences, 2025; Near, "Phylogenetic Classification of Living and Fossil Ray-Finned Fishes (Actinopterygii)", Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2024-04-18, p. 101; Thacker, "Phylogeny, biology, and evolution of acanthopterygian fish clades", Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 2025-03-13, p. 805–8 en.wikipedia.org
- Open Library record, ISBN 9781118342336 ("Fishes of the World"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Blenniiformes (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Blennies
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Blenniiformes (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the Codexery glossary, each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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