Halieutopsis

Halieutopsis is a genus of marine ray-finned fish in the family Ogcocephalidae, commonly known as deep sea batfishes. Members of this genus live in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Taxonomy

The genus was first proposed in 1899 by American zoologist Samuel Garman as a monospecific group, with the type species collected off the Galapagos Islands. It belongs to the Indo-Pacific clade within the family Ogcocephalidae, which is itself the sole family in the suborder Ogcocephaloidei, part of the anglerfish order Lophiiformes.

Etymology

The name Halieutopsis combines halieut (from the Greek halieutaea, meaning "angler" or "fisherman") with the suffix opsis ("looking like"), referring to the genus’s resemblance to the related genus Halieutaea.

Species

Seventeen species are currently recognized: Halieutopsis andriashevi, H. bathyoreos, H. echinoderma, H. galatea, H. ingerorum, H. kawaii, H. margaretae, H. murrayi, H. nasuta, H. nudiventer, H. oblonga, H. okamurai, H. simula, H. stellifera, H. taiwanea, H. tumifrons, and H. vermicularis. Many authorities consider H. vermicularis a synonym of H. nasuta.

Characteristics

These batfishes are distinguished from other ogcocephalines by lacking gill filaments on the third and fourth gill arches, and typically having teeth on the fifth ceratobranchial arranged in two small, well-separated patches. The illicium is simple, spine-like, and lacks a cavity at its base. The esca has two large lateral lobes and a dorsal middle lobe, often with cirrhi or skin flaps. The pectoral fin bases are broadly connected to the body.

The lateral line is broken; the tail portion runs along the lower body and reaches just before or past the anus, with one to six neuromasts on each side of the anus. Individuals are relatively small, usually less than 100 mm in standard length. The largest species, H. nasuta, reaches a maximum total length of 140 mm.

Halieutopsis species are found in the Indian Ocean and the western and eastern Pacific Oceans, in temperate to tropical regions on continental shelves and slopes, and in deeper Indo-Pacific waters, at depths ranging from about 100 to 4020 meters.