Ovalentaria

family of fishes

Beloniformes is an order composed of six families (and about 264 species) of freshwater and marine ray-finned fish: Adrianichthyidae (ricefish and medakas) Belonidae (needlefish) Exocoetidae (flyingfishes) Hemiramphidae (halfbeaks) Scomberesocidae (sauries) Zenarchopteridae (viviparous halfbeaks)

The longfins, also known as roundheads or spiny basslets, are a family, Plesiopidae, which were formerly placed in the order Perciformes or considered indeterminate percomorphs, but are now considered basal blenniiforms. They are elongated fishes, found in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean.

Blennies (from the Greek and , mucus, slime) are a diverse clade of ray-finned fish in the suborder Blennioidei of the percomorph order Blenniiformes. They inhabit marine, brackish, and occasionally freshwater habitats, and generally share similar morphology and behaviour. About 151 genera and nearly 900 species have been described within the order.

Grammatidae is a small family of ray-finned fishes which were formerly placed in the order Perciformes or as indeterminate percomorphs, but are now considered blenniiforms. They are commonly known as basslets. They are marine fish found in the tropical western Atlantic Ocean.

The dottybacks are a family, Pseudochromidae, of fishes which were formerly classified in the order Perciformes or considered incertae sedis percomorphs, but are now considered basal blenniiforms. Around 152 species belong to this family.

Leaffishes are small fishes of the family Polycentridae. They consist of four genera found in fresh and brackish water in South America and Africa.

Cichliformes is an order of ray-finned fish. Its members were previously classified under the order Perciformes, but now many authorities consider it to be an independent order within the subseries Ovalentaria. The earliest fossils are known from the Eocene.

Blenniiformes is an order of percomorph fish in the clade Ovalentaria, of which it is the most diverse group. This order contains several well-known fish groups such as blennies and damselfish.

Ovalentaria is a clade of ray-finned fishes within the Percomorpha, referred to as a subseries. It is made up of a group of fish families which are referred to in ''Fishes of the World's fifth edition as incertae sedis, as well as the orders Mugiliformes, Cichliformes, and Blenniiformes. It was named by W. L. Smith and T. J. Near in Wainwright et al.'' (2012) based on a molecular phylogeny, but the authors suggested that the group was united by the presence of demersal eggs that are attached to a substrate. Some authors have used the ordinal name Stiassnyiformes for a clade including Mugiloide

The Atherinomorpha is a clade of fishes in the superorder Acanthopterygii, the ray-finned fishes, consisting of three orders. The clade is ranked as an infraseries within the subseries Ovalentaria, which in turn is ranked within the wider Percomorpha clade.