Blepsias

Blepsias
Crested sculpin (B. bilobus)
Silverspotted sculpin (B. cirrhosus)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Perciformes
Family:	Agonidae
Subfamily:	Hemitripterinae
Genus:	Blepsias G. Cuvier, 1829
Type species
Trachinus cirrhosus Pallas, 1814[1]
Synonyms[1]
Histiocottus Gill, 1889 Peropus Lay & Bennett, 1839 Temnistia Richardson, 1836

Blepsias is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Agonidae, the poachers and related fishes. These fishes are found in the coastal northern Pacific Ocean from Japan to California.

Taxonomy

Blepsias was first proposed as a genus by the French zoologist Georges Cuvier with Trachinus cirrhosus, which had originally been described in 1814 by Peter Simon Pallas from Kamchatka, as the type species.[1] The genus is included in the subfamily Hemitripterinae of the family Agonidae.[2] Cuvier used a Greek name for a fish, as was his habit, for the name of the new genus.[3]

Species

The recognized species in this genus are:[4]

• Blepsias bilobus G. Cuvier, 1829 (crested sculpin)
• Blepsias cirrhosus (Pallas, 1814) (silverspotted sculpin)

Characteristics

Blepsias has a spiny preoperculum, a compressed head, with armoured cheeks and palatine teeth. The large pectoral fins have the lower rays separate from the fin membrane. There are fleshy flaps which hang from the snout. The compressed head separate Blepsias from Hemitripterus.[5] These fishes have maximum published standard lengths of 20 cm (7.9 in) in the case of B. cirrhosus and 25 cm (9.8 in) in B. bilobus.[4]

Distribution and habitat

Blepsias sculpins are found in the North Pacific and the adjacent Arctic waters from Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk north to the Chukchi and Bering seas to central California.[6] They are demersal fishes of shallow, even intertidal, waters where there is algae.[4]

References

1. Eschmeyer, William N.; Fricke, Ron & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Genera in the family Hemitripterinae". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
2. J. S. Nelson; T. C. Grande; M. V. H. Wilson (2016). Fishes of the World (5th ed.). Wiley. pp. 467–495. ISBN 978-1-118-34233-6. Archived from the original on 2019-04-08. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
3. Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara, eds. (22 October 2022). "Order Perciformes: Suborder Cottoidea: Infraorder Cottales: Families Trichodontidae, Jordaniidae, Rhamphocottidae, Scorpaenichthyidae and Agonidae". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
4. Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Species in genus Blepsias". FishBase. August 2022 version.
5. Cuvier, G. and A. Valenciennes (1829). Histoire naturelle des poissons. Tome quatrième. Livre quatrième. Des acanthoptérygiens à joue cuirassée (in French). Vol. t.4.
6. Mecklenburg, C. W. (2003). "Family Hemitripteridae Gill 1872 — sea ravens or sailfin sculpins" (PDF). California Academy of Sciences Annotated Checklists of Fishes. 5.