Butidae

For other gobies with this family's common name, see sleeper goby (disambiguation).

Butidae
Butis butis
Ophiocara porocephala
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Gobiiformes
Family: Butidae
Bleeker, 1874[1]

Butidae is a family of sleeper gobies in the order Gobiiformes. The family was formerly classified as a subfamily of the Eleotridae but the 5th Edition of Fishes of the World classifies it as a family in its own right.[2] Molecular phylogenetic analyses have demonstrated that the Butidae are a sister clade to the clade containing the families Gobiidae and Gobionellidae and that the Eleotridae is a sister to both of these clades. This means that the Eloetridae as formerly classified was paraphyletic and that its subfamilies should be raised to the status of families.[3]

The species in the Butidae are largely restricted to tropical and sub-tropical waters of Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. They are especially diverse in New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand where they can be important components of brackish and freshwater ecosystems.[3] They are mostly quite small species but the marbled goby (Oxyeleotris marmorata) is a freshwater species of Buitdae from Southeast Asia that can grow to 65 cm (25.6 in) long and is an important food fish.[4][5]

  1. ^ Richard van der Laan; William N. Eschmeyer & Ronald Fricke (2014). "Family-group names of Recent fishes". Zootaxa. 3882 (2): 001–230. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3882.1.1. PMID 25543675.
  2. ^ Nelson, JS; Grande, TC & Wilson, MVH (2016). "Classification of fishes from Fishes of the World 5th Edition" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
  3. ^ a b Christine Thacker (2011). "Chapter 1.5 Systematics of Butidae and Eleotridae". In Robert Patzner; James L. Van Tassell; Marcelo Kovacic; B. G. Kapoor (eds.). The Biology of Gobies (PDF). CRC Press. ISBN 978-1578084364. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-07-28. Retrieved 2018-07-22.
  4. ^ Riehl, R. & Baensch, H.A. (1996): Aquarium Atlas (Volume 1). Voyageur Press. p. 992. ISBN 978-3-88244-050-8
  5. ^ Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Oxyeleotris marmorata". FishBase. September 2017 version.