Psychrolutidae

Psychrolutidae (commonly known as marine sculpins, flathead sculpins, blobfishes, or tadpole sculpins) is a family of sculpins found in cool temperate waters throughout the Northern Hemisphere, with a few species ranging into cold and deep waters of the Southern Hemisphere. The vast majority are found in marine habitats, but a few range into freshwater habitats. The family reaches its greatest diversity in the North Pacific Ocean, but a few species are found as far south as Antarctica. The family contains over 216 recognized species in 63 genera. Their name is derived from the Greek psychrolouteo, meaning "to have a cold bath". ==Taxonomy== In the past, this family was restricted to just a few genera (most famously the blobfish of Psychrolutes) restricted to deep or cool temperate habitats, with a tadpole-like body plan with large heads and bodies that taper back into small, flat tails. Other, more typical-looking marine sculpins were placed in the family Cottidae, which also contains freshwater sculpins like Cottus. However, phylogenetic evidence has found this classification to be paraphyletic: almost all marine sculpins are more closely related to the blobfish than they are to freshwater sculpins. This necessitated the restriction of Cottidae to only genera closely related to Cottus, while almost all other marine sculpins were moved into Psychrolutidae.

Fossil otoliths reminiscent of Enophrys are known from the Early Eocene of England, although skeletal fossil remains definitively assignable to this family only appear during the Miocene.