Family: OGCOCEPHALIDAE, Batfish, Batfishes

FAMILY OGCOCEPHALIDAE

BATFISHES

Batfishes are small fishes (to 25 cm) that have a strongly flattened, somewhat disc-like, body; head pointed to rounded when viewed from above; a piston-like fishing rod apparatus on the snout in a cavity just above the mouth, a lumpy bait at the end of the rod; roof of the fishing-rod cavity juts out as a rostrum; gill openings small, behind upper base of pectoral fin; dorsal and anal fins small, at rear of body; large arm-like pectoral fins; smaller arm-like pelvic fins under body, well before pectorals; scales modified to form an armor of cones and prickles.

The family Ogcocephalidae is a circumglobal tropical to subtropical group containing 64 species divided among nine genera; 15 species in 5 genera occur in the Greater Caribbean.

PREPARED BY D ROSS ROBERTSON, AFTER BRADBURY (2002)