Taxonomy and systematics of tetraodontiform fishes: a review focusing primarily on progress in the period from 1980 to 2014

Abstract

When the first Indo-Pacific Fish Conference (IPFC1) was held in Sydney in 1981, there were still many problems in the generic-and species-level taxonomy of all tetraodontiform families except for the recently reviewed Triacanthodidae and Triacanthidae. The period from IPFC1 to IPFC9 (1981IPFC9 ( -2013) was a time of great progress in the taxonomy and systematics of the Tetraodontiformes: many review and revisional papers have been published for various genera and species, with descriptions of many new taxa occurring mainly on coral reefs and in tropical freshwaters; and cladistic analyses of morphological characters have been performed to clarify phylogenetic relationships of various families and molecular analyses have greatly progressed to provide detailed phylogenetic relationships of families, genera, and even species. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review on developments in the taxonomy and systematics of the Tetraodontiformes, focusing primarily on contributions since 1980 (when James C. Tyler's monumental work was published) through the period of IPFCs, including pertinent publications before 1980. This paper recognizes 412 extant species in the 10 families of living Tetraodontiformes, with the allocation of species and genera as follows: Triacanthodidae including 23 species in 11 genera, Triacanthidae seven species in four genera, Balistidae 37 species in 12 genera, Monacanthidae 102 species in 27 genera, Aracanidae 13 species in six genera, Ostraciidae 22 species in five genera, Triodontidae monotypic, Tetraodontidae 184 species in 27 genera, Diodontidae 18 species in seven genera, and Molidae five species in three genera. Phylogenetic relationships of the families have been clarified by morphological and molecular analyses and have provided well-supported sister relationships of the families: Triacanthodidae and Triacanthidae, Balistidae and Monacanthidae, and Tetraodontidae and Diodontidae. However, there remain problems with the phylogenetic positions of the Triodontidae and Molidae due to conflicts of differing positions in morphological and molecular studies (e.g., Molidae has been placed differently among molecular studies).

V. Gerovasileiou et al.: New Mediterranean Biodiversity Records (July, 2017)

“…This fish was identified as a yellow boxfish, Ostracion cubicus Linnaeus, 1758. It belongs to the Ostraciidae that include 22 species (Matsuura, 2015;Eschmeyer et al, 2017). Boxfishes feed on a variety of benthic invertebrates.…”

New records of marine fishes from the coral reefs and deep waters of Gulf of Mannar, India

“…Distribution. East Africa to southern Japan, northern Australia and New Caledonia (Matsuura 2015). This specimen represents the first record in the Indian waters.…”

Incidental catch of the rare shortbill spearfish (Tetrapturus angustirostris) by the tuna purse seine fleet in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean

“…Aunado a los posibles efectos migratorios estacionales, el hecho de que los datos reportados por Shimose et al (2010) provinieran de operaciones con palangre podría inducir una fuente de According to Shimose et al (2010), spearfish feed mainly on fish from the Molidae family, and "[tend] to avoid the equatorial zone, where preferable prey may not be available." Measurement and count data for members of the Molidae family is scarce (Matsuura 2015). Some Molidae, such as Mola mola, occur seasonally in Pacific Ocean waters off Southern California (USA), suggesting migratory activity (Cartamil and Lowe 2004), presumably in response to a preferred temperature range (Lee 1986).…”