Day twelve of the Twelve Days of Fishmas! Day eleven can be found here. The tag for the whole set will be here.
On the twelfth day of Fishmas cladistics gave to me…
- Twelve figures from the Eupercaria!
- Eleven fish near the top
- Ten Syngnatharia+Pelagiaria
- 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
And to finish! Clade Twelve! The Eupercaria–an enormous clade of actinopterygiian fish. This group within itself is loaded with a whole lot taxonomic diversity…I didn’t even try to represent the phylogeny of the Eupercaria in that picture…it could have honestly been it’s own 12 days. Anyway, it’s a pretty exhausting list of fish that are included in the Eupercaria, including anglerfish, wrasses, breams, scats, bass, sculpins, pufferfish, perch, sunfish, scorpionfish…a lot of fish united by their spiny rayed fins (more so…) After that, their subdividing is beyond my current knowledge.
It goes without saying that with a clade of fish so incredibly diverse and widespread–and overwhelmingly familiar to many people–there are a lot of figures representing them. It’s a group that I tend to be more picky about, just because the shelves could easily get overrun with them (and I will always prefer the weird and the ancient…) So what am I choosing to represent here? A Colorata Clownfish, an Eikoh Goosefish, a Kaiyodo Porcupine puffer, a Kitan Lumpsucker, a Safari Grouper, Yellow Perch and Stonefish, a Takara Snailfish, a Yowies Wolffish, and a Yujin Largemouth Bass, Lionfish and Stickleback.
Day twelve! Last day! Huge group, almost overwhelmingly so…but we’re almost there!
