The cutlassfishes are about 40 species of predatory fish in the family Trichiuridae (order Perciformes) found in seas throughout the world. Fish of this family are long, slender, and generally steely blue or silver in colour, giving rise to their name. They have reduced or absent pelvic and caudal fins, giving them an eel-like appearance, and large fang-like teeth.^[1]

Some of the species are known as scabbardfishes or hairtails or Walla Walla; others are called frostfishes because they appear in late autumn and early winter, around the time of the first frosts.

Classification

This list of species follows FishBase:^[2]

• Genus Aphanopus
  • Aphanopus arigato Parin, 1994
  • Aphanopus beckeri Parin, 1994
  • Aphanopus capricornis Parin, 1994
  • Black scabbardfish, A. carbo Lowe, 1839
  • Intermediate scabbardfish, A. intermedius Parin, 1983
  • Smalleye scabbardfish, A. microphthalmus Norman, 1939
  • Mikhailin's scabbardfish, A. mikhailini Parin, 1983
• Genus Assurger
  • Razorback scabbardfish, Assurger anzac Alexander, 1917
• Genus Benthodesmus
  • Elongate frostfish, B. elongatus Clarke, 1879
  • Bigeye frostfish, B. macrophthalmus Parin & Becker, 1970
  • Neglected frostfish, B. neglectus Parin, 1976
  • Sparse-rayed frostfish, B. oligoradiatus Parin & Becker, 1970
  • North Pacific frostfish, B. pacificus Parin & Becker, 1970
  • Papuan frostfish, B. papua Parin, 1978
  • Simony's frostfish, B. simonyi Steindachner, 1891
    

    

    Benthodesmus simonyi
  • Philippine frostfish, B. suluensis Parin, 1976
  • Slender frostfish, B. tenuis Günther, 1877
  • Tucker's frostfish, B. tuckeri Parin & Becker, 1970
  • Vityaz' frostfish, B. vityazi Parin & Becker, 1970
• Genus Demissolinea
  • New Guinean hairtail, D. novaeguineensis Burhanuddin & Iwatsuki, 2003
• Genus Eupleurogrammus
  • Longtooth hairtail, E. glossodon (Bleeker, 1860)
  • Smallhead hairtail, E. muticus (Gray, 1831)
• Genus Evoxymetopon
  • Evoxymetopon macrophthalmus Chakraborty, Yoshino & Iwatsuki, 2006.^[3]
  • Poey's scabbardfish, E. poeyi Günther, 1887
  • Channel scabbardfish, E. taeniatus Gill, 1863
• Genus Lepidopus
  • Crested scabbardfish, L. altifrons Parin & Collette, 1993
  • Hawaiian ridge scabbardfish, L. calcar Parin & Mikhailin, 1982
  • Silver scabbardfish, L. caudatus (Euphrasen, 1788)
  • Doubtful scabbardfish, L. dubius Parin & Mikhailin, 1981
  • Fitch's scabbardfish, L. fitchi Rosenblatt & Wilson, 1987
  • Ghost scabbardfish, L. manis Rosenblatt & Wilson, 1987
• Genus Lepturacanthus
  • Coromandel hairtail, L. pantului (Gupta, 1966)
  • Savalani hairtail, L. savala (Cuvier, 1829)
• Genus Tentoriceps
  • Crested hairtail, T. cristatus (Klunzinger, 1884)
• Genus Trichiurus
  • Pearly hairtail, T. auriga Klunzinger, 1884
  • Trichiurus australis Chakraborty, Burhanuddin & Iwatsuki, 2005.^[4]
  • Chinese short-tailed hairtail, T. brevis Wang & You, 1992
  • Ganges hairtail, T. gangeticus Gupta, 1966
  • Largehead hairtail, T. lepturus Linnaeus, 1758
  • Trichiurus margarites Li, 1992
  • Trichiurus nanhaiensis Wang & Xu, 1992
  • Australian short-tailed hairtail, T. nickolensis Burhanuddin & Iwatsuki, 2003
  • Short-tailed hairtail, T. russelli Dutt & Thankam, 1966

Aphanopus carbo

Timeline of genera

References

1. ^ Johnson, G.D. & Gill, A.C. (1998). Paxton, J.R. & Eschmeyer, W.N.. ed. Encyclopedia of Fishes. San Diego: Academic Press. pp. 190. ISBN 0-12-547665-5.
2. ^ Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). "Trichiuridae" in FishBase. January 2006 version.
3. ^ Chakraborty, Yoshino & Iwatsuki (2006). "A new species of scabbardfish, Evoxymetopon macrophthalmus (Scombroidei: Trichiuridae), from Okinawa, Japan". Ichthyological Research 53 (2): 137ff. doi:10.1007/s10228-005-0319-x.
4. ^ Anirban Chakraborty, Andi Iqbal Burhanuddin and Yukio Iwatsuki (2005). "A new species, Trichiurus australis (Perciformes: Trichiuridae), from Australia". Ichthyological Research 52 (2): 165–170. doi:10.1007/s10228-005-0268-4.

• Sepkoski, Jack (2002). "A compendium of fossil marine animal genera". Bulletins of American Paleontology 364: p.560. http://strata.ummp.lsa.umich.edu/jack/showgenera.php?taxon=611&rank=class. Retrieved 2011-05-19.