Snipefish
Encyclopedia
The snipefishes are two species of fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

es found in tropical and subtropical oceans at depth down to 600 metres (1,968.5 ft). According to FishBase
FishBase
FishBase is a comprehensive database of information about fish species . It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web...

, they are part of the family Centriscidae
Centriscidae
Centriscidae is the family of snipefishes, shrimpfishes, and bellowfishes. A small family, consisting of only about a dozen marine species, they are of an unusual appearance, as reflected by the common names...

, but some authorities split that family, in which case the genus Macroramphosus is in the family Macroramphosidae. They have a long second spine on the dorsal fin
Dorsal fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...

 and a tiny mouth at the tip of a greatly elongated snout. Their body is more streamlined than in the related bellowfish
Bellowfish
The bellowfishes or bellowsfishes are fishes found in deeper parts of the temperate southern oceans, although the longspine bellowfish has been recorded as far north as New Caledonia and Madagascar...

es. They reach a maximum length of approximately 20 centimetres (7.9 in), and are silvery or reddish in colour. They are sometimes found in large schools.

Species

  • Slender snipefish
    Slender snipefish
    The slender snipefish or snipefish is a snipefish of the genus Macroramphosus. It is found in tropical oceans around the world at depths of . Its length is up to .-References:...

     or snipefish, Macroramphosus gracilis (Lowe, 1839).
  • Longspine snipefish
    Longspine snipefish
    The longspine snipefish, bellowfish, common bellowsfish, snipe-fish, snipefish, spine trumpet fish, or trumpetfish, Macroramphosus scolopax, is a snipefish of the genus Macroramphosus, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and west Pacific Oceans, at depths of...

    , bellowfish, common bellowsfish, snipe-fish, snipefish, spine trumpet fish or trumpetfish, Macroramphosus scolopax (Linnaeus, 1758).
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