Acanthocepola

Acanthocepola is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Cepolidae, the bandfishes. They are native to the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean.

==Taxonomy== Acanthocepola is classified within the subfamily Cepolinae. The genus was first formally described in 1874 by the Dutch physician and ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker who designated Cepola krusensternii, which had been described by Coenraad Jacob Temminck & Hermann Schlegel in 1845, as the type species, although the genus was also monotypic. The genus name, Acanthocepola is a compound of acanthus meaning "spine" and Cepola the type genus of the family Cepolidae, a reference to the spines on the edge of the preoperculum.