Clupeiformes

Clupeiformes
Temporal range: Barremian–present[1]
Atlantic herring, Clupea harengus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Cohort: Otocephala
Superorder: Clupeomorpha
Order: Clupeiformes
Goodrich, 1909
Type species
Clupea harengus
Families

See text

Clupeiformes /ˈklpɪfɔːrmz/ is the order of ray-finned fish that includes the herring family, Clupeidae, and the anchovy family, Engraulidae. The group includes many of the most important forage and food fish.

Clupeiformes are physostomes, which means that their gas bladder has a pneumatic duct connecting it to the gut. They typically lack a lateral line, but still have the eyes, fins and scales that are common to most fish, though not all fish have these attributes. They are generally silvery fish with streamlined, spindle-shaped bodies, and they often school. Most species eat plankton which they filter from the water with their gill rakers.[2]

The former order of Isospondyli was subsumed mostly by Clupeiformes,[3] but some isospondylous fishes (isospondyls) were assigned to Osteoglossiformes, Salmoniformes, Cetomimiformes, etc.[4]

Their sister group were the extinct Ellimmichthyiformes, which were dominant throughout much of the Cretaceous and into the Paleogene,[5] and often coexisted with clupeiforms at many known localities. Both groups closely resembled each other morphologically, although the ellimmichthyiformes evolved some highly divergent body plans later in the Cretaceous.

Several fossil clupeiforms are known from the Early Cretaceous of South America that appear to be more closely allied with Clupeioidei over the Denticipitidae. This suggests a very deep divergence within the crown group Clupeiformes that must have occurred during the Early Cretaceous or before.[6][7]

  1. ^ De Figueiredo, Francisco J. (2009-12-12). "A new clupeiform fish from the Lower Cretaceous (Barremian) of Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, northeastern Brazil". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 29 (4): 993–1005. doi:10.1671/039.029.0402. ISSN 0272-4634.
  2. ^ Nelson, Gareth (1998). Paxton, J.R.; Eschmeyer, W.N. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Fishes. San Diego: Academic Press. pp. 91–95. ISBN 0-12-547665-5.
  3. ^ Journal of Ichthyology. Vol. 46. Scripta. 2006. p. S40. within Isospondyli (= Clupeiformes s. lato)
  4. ^ lfonso L. Rojo (2017). Dictionary of Evolutionary Fish Osteology. CRC. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-351-36604-5. Under the name Isospondyli, Regan (1909) grouped the fishes having the verterbrae immediately after the skull similar in shape to the remaining ones, in contrast to the ostariophysans, in which the anterior vertebrae are greatly modified. Modern classifications have rejected this artificially constructed group, and the fishes previously assigned to it have been distributed among different orders (Clupeiformes, Osteoglossiformes, Salmoniformes, Cetomimiformes, etc.)
  5. ^ Nelson, Joseph S.; Grande, Terry C.; Wilson, Mark V. H. (2016-02-22). Fishes of the World. Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781119174844. ISBN 978-1-118-34233-6.
  6. ^ Francisco J. De Figueiredo (2009). "A new clupeiform fish from the Lower Cretaceous (Barremian) of Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, Northeastern Brazil". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 29 (4): 993–1005. Bibcode:2009JVPal..29..993D. doi:10.1671/039.029.0402. S2CID 220436023.
  7. ^ Malabarba, Maria C.; Dario, Fabio Di (2017). "A new predatory herring-like fish (Teleostei: Clupeiformes) from the early Cretaceous of Brazil, and implications for relationships in the Clupeoidei". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 180 (1): 175–194.