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Scatophagidae

Fricke, Ronald;Allen, Gerald R.;Andréfouët, Serge;Chen, Wei-Jen;Hamel, Mélanie A.;Laboute, Pierre;Mana, Ralph;Hui, Tan Heok;Uyeno, Daisuke

EntityQ585021· pop 31· linked from 39 articles

Scatophagidae

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Scatophagidae, the scats are a small family of ray-finned fishes in the order Acanthuriformes. They are found in the Indo-Pacific region but one species has been introduced elsewhere.

Species

scats

FAMILY

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumChordata
  3. ClassTeleostei
  4. OrderPerciformes
  5. FamilyScatophagidae
Habitatmarine, brackish, freshwater
Observations recorded5,037

via GBIF

Museum specimens

Specimen records
48
Family
Scatophagidae
Collections
CHAS, MSUM, NRM, USNM, CMN, FMNH
Recorded in
Canada, United States, Sweden, Costa Rica, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Australia

Wikidata facts

Instance of
taxon
Parent taxon
Acanthuriformes
Image
ScatophagusArgus.png
Show 6 more facts
Commons category
Scatophagidae
taxon rank
family
taxon name
Scatophagidae
topic's main category
Category:Scatophagidae
taxon common name
argusfiskfamilien
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Encyclopedic overview

7 sections
Contents
  • Taxonomy
  • Genera
  • Characteristics
  • Distribution and habitat
  • Biology
  • Utilisation
  • References

Scatophagidae, the scats are a small family of ray-finned fishes in the order Acanthuriformes. They are found in the Indo-Pacific region but one species has been introduced elsewhere.

==Taxonomy== Scatophagidae was first formally described as a family in 1883 by the American ichthyologist Theodore Nicholas Gill. They are classified in the superfamily Siganiodea, along with the rabbitfishes of the family Siganidae, within the suborder Percoidei in the 5th edition of Fishes of the World. Other workers have classified them with the surgeonfishes in the order Acanthuriformes or as incertae sedis within the series Eupercaria. The name of the family comes from its type genus Scatophagus and this is a compound of skatos meaning "dung" and phaga which means to eat, a reference to its species' purported taste for human faeces.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Scatophagidae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (2)