Ambassidae

Asiatic glassfishes
Temporal range: Santonian to present
Indian glassy fish, Parambassis ranga
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
(unranked): Ovalentaria
Family: Ambassidae
Klunzinger, 1870
Genera[1]

Ambassis
Chanda
†Dapalis
Denariusa
Gymnochanda
†Kapurdia
Paradoxodacna
Parambassis
Pseudambassis
Tetracentrum

The Asiatic glassfishes are a family, the Ambassidae, of freshwater and marine ray-finned fishes that were formerly classified in the order Perciformes, but most authorities consider this order to be paraphyletic and that the Ambassidae are of uncertain affinities, incertae sedis, but within the subseries Ovalentaria.[2] The species in the family are native to Asia, Oceania, the Indian Ocean, and the western Pacific Ocean. The family includes eight genera and about 51 species.[3] Some species are known as perchlets.

The largest species reaches a maximum size around 26 cm (10 in). Many of the species are noted for their transparent or semitransparent bodies.[4]

Several species are used as aquarium fish, noted for their transparent bodies. The Indian glassy fish (Parambassis ranga) is transparent, but showier specimens that had been injected with artificial coloring were sold as novelty pets in the 1990s. Since then, these "painted fish" have become much less popular, with more fishkeepers seeking naturally pigmented specimens.[5]

One of the oldest known fossil members of the family is Dapalis, which appears to be a stem group-glassfish with fossil otoliths known as far back as the Late Cretaceous.[6][7] Full-body fossils of Dapalis become particularly common in the Late Oligocene and Early Miocene of Europe. The fossil genus Kapurdia is known from the early Eocene of Rajasthan, India.[8]

  1. ^ Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Family Ambassidae". FishBase. December 2012 version.
  2. ^ J. S. Nelson; T. C. Grande; M. V. H. Wilson (2016). Fishes of the World (5th ed.). Wiley. p. 752. ISBN 978-1-118-34233-6. Archived from the original on 2019-04-08. Retrieved 2018-09-23.
  3. ^ "Fish Identification". www.fishbase.se. Retrieved 2018-08-30.
  4. ^ "Fish Identification: Find family". www.fishbase.se. Retrieved 2018-08-30.
  5. ^ Dawes, J. Complete Encyclopedia of the Freshwater Aquarium. Firefly Books. 2001. page 289.
  6. ^ Ghazali, Siti Zafirah; Lavoué, Sébastien; Sukmono, Tedjo; Habib, Ahasan; Tan, Min Pau; Nor, Siti Azizah Mohd (2023). "Cenozoic colonisation of the Indian Ocean region by the Australian freshwater-originating glassperch family Ambassidae (Teleostei)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 186: 107832. Bibcode:2023MolPE.18607832G. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107832. ISSN 1055-7903. PMID 37263456.
  7. ^ Nolf, Dick (2003). "Fish otoliths from the Santonian of the Pyrenean faunal province, and an overview of all otolith- documented North Atlantic Late Cretaceous teleosts". Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique - Bulletin van het Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen. 73: 155–173.
  8. ^ India, Zoological Society of (1969). Journal of the Zoological Society of India. The Society.