Bathydraco Explained

Bathydraco is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Bathydraconidae, the Antarctic dragonfishes. They are native to the Southern Ocean.

Taxonomy

Bathydraco was first described as a genus in 1878 by the German-born British ichthyologist Albert Günther as a monotypic genus with B. antarctica, which had been collected on the Callenger expedition south of Heard Island, as its type species. The generic name Bathydraco is a combination of bathy meaning "deep" and draco meaning dragon, the type of B. antarctica was collected at and draco is a commonly used suffix for Notothenioids.^[1]

Species

There are currently five recognized species in this genus:

• Bathydraco antarcticus Günther, 1878
• Bathydraco joannae H. H. DeWitt, 1985
• Bathydraco macrolepis Boulenger, 1907
• Bathydraco marri Norman, 1938 (Deep-water dragon)
• Bathydraco scotiae Dollo, 1906

Notes and References

1. Web site: Order Perciformes: Suborder Notothenoididei: Families Bovichtidae, Pseaudaphritidae, Elegopinidae, Nototheniidae, Harpagiferidae, Artedidraconidae, Bathydraconidae, Channichthyidae and Percophidae . The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database . Christopher Scharpf . Kenneth J. Lazara . amp . 12 April 2021 . 7 October 2021 . Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara.