Cocotropus

Cocotropus is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, velvetfishes belonging to the family Aploactinidae. The genus is found in the Indian and western Pacific oceans.

==Taxonomy== Cocotropus was first described as a genus in 1858 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup as a monotypic genus, the only species classified within it being Corythobatus echinatus, which had been described in 1849 by the Danish zoologist Theodore Cantor from Penang in Malaysia. The genus Cocotropus is classified within the family Aploactinidae in the suborder Scorpaenoidei within the order Scorpaeniformes, although this family is also treated as a subfamily of the stonefish family Synanceiidae within the Scorpaenoidei, which in turn is treated as a superfamily within the order Perciformes. The name of the genus, Cocotropus was not explained by Kaup but may be a compound of coccum, which means "scarlet", and tropus, meaning "manner" or "way", so a "scarlet fish", however C. echinatus is reddish brown rather than scarlet.