Dactylopteridae

The flying gurnards are a family, Dactylopteridae, of marine fish notable for their greatly enlarged pectoral fins. As they cannot literally fly, an alternative name preferred by some authors is helmet gurnards.

Most species live in the Indo-Pacific, but at least one is native to the Atlantic. The adults live on the sea bottom, but many species have an extended larval stage, which floats freely in the oceans.

Classification Uncertainty

Morphological traits uniting the flying gurnards (Dactylopteridae) and the Syngnathiformes have long been noted. Most authors however placed them with the Scorpaeniformes. How, DNA sequence data quite consistently support the view that the latter are paraphyletic with the Gasterosteiformes sensu lato. As it seems, flying gurnards are particularly close to Aulostomidae and Fistulariidae, and would have to be included with these.

See also

List of fish families

External links

Photos of the Oriental Flying Gurnard (Oriental Searobin, Helmet Gurnard)

References

FishBase entry for Dactylopteridae

(2008): Interrelationships of the 11 gasterosteiform families (sticklebacks, pipefishes, and their relatives): A new perspective based on mitogenome sequences from 75 higher teleosts. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 46(1): 224–236. (HTML abstract)

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