Polyipnus is a genus of oceanic ray-finned fish in the family Sternoptychidae. This is the largest genus of the marine hatchetfishes subfamily Sternoptychinae and indeed of the entire Sternoptychidae. It is not quite as apomorphic as their relatives; it may be that the genus is actually a paraphyletic assemblage of less advanced Sternoptychinae and would need to be split.[2]

Polyipnus
Temporal range: 33.9–0 Ma Early Oligocene to Present[1]
Polyipnus triphanos
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Stomiiformes
Family: Sternoptychidae
Subfamily: Sternoptychinae
Genus: Polyipnus
Günther, 1887

Fossils of this genus show that they have existed at least since the Early Oligocene, about 30 million years ago.[1]

Species edit

There are currently 33 recognized species in this genus:

References edit

  1. ^ a b Sepkoski, J.J.Jr (2002). "A Compendium of Fossil Marine Animal Genera". Bulletins of American Paleontology. 363: 1–560.
  2. ^ Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2016). Species of Polyipnus in FishBase. January 2016 version.
  3. ^ Harold, A.S., Kemp, I.M. & Shore, S.K. (2016): A new species of Polyipnus (Teleostei: Stomiiformes) from the western Pacific, with comments on the P. triphanos species complex. Zootaxa, 4111 (5): 555–564.