Handfish

Handfish or warty frogfish are marine, ray-finned fishes belonging to the subfamily Brachionichthyinae, a group that comprises five genera and 14 extant species and is classified within the frogfish family Antennariidae in the order Lophiiformes, the anglerfishes. These benthic, marine fish are unusual in the way that in addition to swimming, they also use their pectoral fins to "walk" on the sea floor.

==Taxonomy== The handfishes were first proposed as a family, the Brachionichthyidae, in 1878 by American ichthyologist Theodore Gill. The Brachionichthyidae were classified within the suborder Antennarioidei within the order Lophiiformes, the anglerfishes. In 2025, in response to the Antennariidae sensu lato being found to be paraphyletic and increasingly oversplit into distinct families, it was subsumed into a subfamily of the Antenariidae, which is now recognized by ''Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes. Previously, the Brachionichthyidae was regarded as the most basal family within the suborder Antennarioidei. However, the 2025 phylogenetic study found them to be relatively derived, and the sister group to the Rhycherinae.