12 Days of FISHMAS! Day Ten!

Day ten of the Twelve Days of Fishmas! Day nine can be found here. The tag for the whole set will be here.

On the tenth day of Fishmas cladistics gave to me…

Ten Syngnatharia and Pelagiaria species
Nine Percomorpha
Eight basal Neoteleosts
Seven basal euteleostomorphs
Six crown Otomorpha
FIVE! BOH-NY TONGUES!
Four elopomorphs
Three Holosteans
Two Chondrostei
And a bichir at the base of Actinopterygii

For day ten we have a dichotomous pair of clades further into the Percomorphocaea. This clade hasn’t been given a particular name (which is kind of surprising since naming things is what lots of people like to do…) Anyway, of these two clades are the Syngnatharia, which includes the seahorses, pipefishes, trumpetfishes and other fish with long, tube-shaped snouts and bony rings on their bodies; and a ‘benthic’ clade including species like dragonets, goatfishes and gurnards. The other group is the Pelagiaria, a group of primarily pelagic fishes best represented by tunas, mackerels, cutlassfish and several more.

It’s probably not surprising to many people that a number of figures represent some of the included species–some overwhelmingly so (seahorses are especially popular of course!) That said, the clades are very diverse and most of the included families of fishes are not made as figures as far as I could find. Representing the Syngnatharia we have a few–a Yujin Seahorse, Yowies Pipefish, Nayab Seadragon, and Pictorial Book Trumpetfish represent the ‘tube-snouted’ Syngnatharia; and a PlayVisions Dragonet and Kaiyodo Gurnard represent the ‘benthic’ Syngnatharia. For the Pelagiaria, despite the wide range of taxa in this group figures are limited to the more familiar species–a Tuna figures from Safari and Kaiyodo, Colorata Mackerel, and (a prized one) a Yujin Cutlassfish.