Other fish
Seahorses, pufferfish, anglerfish, gobies, flying fish and the rest. 120 fish on EveryFish so far.
Many fish do not fit the familiar groups. Seahorses and pipefish, pufferfish and ocean sunfish, anglerfish, flying fish, oarfish, mudskippers, gobies, archerfish and lizardfish each belong to their own branches of the fish family tree. Among them are some of the strangest shapes and records in the animal world, from the heaviest bony fish to some of the smallest vertebrates known.
Record breakers
The ocean sunfish and its relatives are the heaviest bony fish: a bumphead sunfish found off the Azores in 2021 weighed about 2,700 kg. The giant oarfish is the longest bony fish, reaching around 8 metres. At the other end, Paedocypris progenetica, a tiny carp of Indonesian peat swamps, matures at under 8 mm. Seahorses are unusual in that males carry the eggs in a pouch and give birth.
Odd fish, familiar names
Pufferfish blow themselves up with water and carry a deadly poison, yet are eaten as fugu in Japan. Flying fish glide above the waves on wide pectoral fins. Archerfish of mangroves shoot down insects with jets of water. The Bombay duck, bombil, of India's west coast is a lizardfish, a soft, toothy fish eaten fresh or dried. Anglerfish of the deep sea fish for prey with a glowing lure.
Famous other fish
Still to be written: Ocean sunfish, Leafy seadragon, Hippocampus kuda, Takifugu rubripes, Bombay duck.
Further reading
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Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Oarfish: Sandstein, CC BY 3.0, source
- Humpback anglerfish: Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Banded archerfish: Chrumps, CC BY-SA 3.0, source