Hexagrammos Explained

Hexagrammos is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Hexagrammidae, the greenlings. These fishes are found in the north Pacific Ocean.

Taxonomy

Hexagrammos was first proposed as a monospecific genus in 1810 by the German naturalist Tilesius when he described Hexagrammos asper giving its type locality as Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. Tilesius's original name was subsequently incorrectly changed to H. stelleri and this was the name which became settled on in the literature that followed and this use and practice means it that it is impractical to bring H. asper into common use.[1] The genus is the only genus in the monogeneric subfamily Hexagramminae, within the family Hexagrammidae, part of the suborder Cottoidei within the order Scorpaeniformes.[2]

Etymology

Hexagrammos is a combination of hexa, meaning "six", and grammos, meaning " line", a reference to the multiple lateral line canals with the fifth, lowest canal being divided to produce six such canals.[3]

Species

The currently recognized species in this genus are:

Image Scientific name Common name Distribution
Hexagrammos agrammus (Temminck & Schlegel, 1843) Spotty-bellied greenling Japan, the Korean Peninsula and the Yellow Sea
Hexagrammos decagrammus (Pallas, 1810)kelp greenling northern Pacific especially around British Columbia and Alaska
Hexagrammos lagocephalus (Pallas, 1810) rock greenling Pacific Coast from Alaska's Bering Sea to the coast of southern California.
Hexagrammos octogrammus (Pallas, 1814) masked greenling Sea of Okhotsk and northern Japan
Hexagrammos otakii D. S. Jordan & Starks, 1895 Fat greenling Japan, the southern Korean Peninsula to the Yellow Sea
Hexagrammos stelleri Tilesius, 1810whitespotted greenling Peter the Great Bay, Russia and the Sea of Japan to Cape Lisburne in the Chukchi Sea, Unimak Island in the Aleutian chain and Oregon, USA.

Notes and References

  1. Catherine W. Mecklenburg . . & . 2003 . Family Hexagrammidae Gill 1889 Greenlings . California Academy of Sciences Annotated Checklists of Fishes . 2 .
  2. Book: Fishes of the World . 5th . J. S. Nelson . T. C. Grande . M. V. H. Wilson . 2016 . 467–495 . Wiley . 978-1-118-34233-6 . 2022-12-06 . 2019-04-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190408194051/https://sites.google.com/site/fotw5th/ . dead .
  3. Web site: Order Perciformes: Suborder Cottoidea: Infraorder Hexagrammales: Family Hexagrammidae . The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database . Christopher Scharpf . Kenneth J. Lazara . amp . 18 July 2021 . 5 December 2022 . Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara.