Ceratiidae

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This article is about the deep-sea fish. For other uses see Sea devil.

Sea devils
Krøyer's deep sea angler fish, Ceratias holboelli
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Actinopterygii Order: Lophiiformes Family: Ceratiidae
Genera
Ceratias Cryptopsaras See text for species.

Sea devils are a family, Ceratiidae, of deep-sea anglerfishes.^[1]

The scientific name is from Greek keras meaning "horn", and refers to the bioluminescent lure that project's from the fish's forehead.

They are among the most widespread of the anglerfishes, being found in all oceans, from tropical to Antarctic. They are large, elongate anglerfishes: females of the largest species, Krøyer's deep sea angler fish, Ceratias holboelli, reach 1.2 m in length. The males, by contrast, are dwarfed, reaching 14 cm. As in other anglerfishes, males spend much of their lives parasitically attached to the females, but they have a free-living adolescent stage in which they are very small (at most 1.3 cm), and have sharp, beak-like, toothless jaws.^[2]

[edit] Species

There are four species in two genera:

• Genus Ceratias
  • Krøyer's deep sea angler fish, Ceratias holboelli Krøyer, 1845.
  • Ceratias tentaculatus (Norman, 1930).
  • Ceratias uranoscopus Murray, 1877.
• Genus Cryptopsaras
  • Triplewart seadevil, Cryptopsaras couesii Gill, 1883.

[edit] References

1. ^ "Ceratiidae". FishBase. Ed. Rainer Froese and Daniel Pauly. February 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.
2. ^ Theodore W. Pietsch. Ceratiidae. Tree of Life. Retrieved on 3 April 2006.