Ostracion is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Ostraciidae, the boxfishes. These fishes are found in the Indo-Pacific region as far east as the eastern Pacific coasts of the Americas.
Ostracion was first proposed as a genus by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Ostracion cubicus was subsequently designated as the type species of this genus. However, the original designation is unclear, Pieter Bleeker designate O. teragonus as the type in 1865 while David Starr Jordan and Charles Henry Gilbert designated it as O. cubiceps in 1883. This genus is the type genus of the family Ostraciidae which the 5th edition of Fishes of the World classifies within the family Ostraciidae in the suborder Ostracioidea within the order Tetraodontiformes.[1]
Ostracion means "little box" and is an allusion to the shape of the body of its type species, O. cubicum.[2]
Ostracion contains the following recognised species:[3]
Ostracion boxfishes have thick and oblong bodies which are largely encased in a carapace made up of thickened, bony plate-like hexagonal scales which are jointed to one another. The carapace is cuboidal in shape, it is gently rounded on its dorsal surface and flat on its ventral surface. There ara pair of logitudinal ridges on the lwoer flanks but there are no spines on the carapacem which has gaps for the mouth, eyes, gill slits, fins abd caudal peduncle. They do have a protruding snout with a small mouth which has fleshy lips and 15, or less, modereately sized conical teeth in each jaw. The gill splits are short and oblique and sit to the front of the base of the pectoral fins. The dorsal and anal fins are positioned towards the rear. The cuadal peduncle is slender and the caudal fin is a rounded fan.[4] The largest species in the genus is the yellow boxfish (O. cubicum), with a maximum published total length of, while the smallest is the roughskin trunkfish (O. trachys), with a maximum published total length of .
Ostracion boxfishes are found in the Indian and PacificOceans from the Red Sea and eastern coast of Africa east as far as the Eastern Pacific between Mexico and Ecuador.[4] One species, the yellow boxfish, has reached the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal.[5] These fishes are solitary species of lagoons and reefs, typically in shallow water.[6]