''Batrachocottus'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of freshwater

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

es belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Cottidae The Cottidae are a family of fish in the superfamily Cottoidea, the sculpins. It is the largest sculpin family, with about 275 species in 70 genera.Kane, E. A. and T. E. Higham. (2012)Life in the flow lane: differences in pectoral fin morphology ...

, the typical sculpins. These fishes are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the

Lake Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...

watershed Watershed may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, an area of land where surface water converges (North American usage) Music * Watershed Music Festival, an annual country ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Taxonomy

''Batrachocottus'' was first proposed as a

monospecific genus In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

in 1903 by the Russian

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...

Lev Berg Lev Semyonovich Berg, also known as Leo S. Berg (; 14 March 1876 – 24 December 1950) was a leading Russian geographer, biologist and ichthyologist who served as President of the Soviet Geographical Society between 1940 and 1950. He is known f ...

with ''Cottus baicalensis'' as its

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

. This genus was not mentioned by the 5th edition of ''

Fishes of the World ''Fishes of the World'' is a standard reference for the systematics of fishes. It was first written in 1976 by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011). Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of t ...

'' and has been placed in the family Cottidae by some authorities. and in the subfamily

Abyssocottinae The Abyssocottinae are a subfamily of ray-finned fishes in the family Cottidae, the sculpins. They are known commonly as the deep-water sculpins.Froese, R. and D. Pauly. (Eds.Abyssocottidae.FishBase. 2011. The entire subfamily is endemic to Lake ...

by others. However, other authorities have used

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

studies which have found that Baikal sculpins that were classified in the subfamilies Comephorinae and

by ''Fishes of the World'' radiated from an ancestor which was likely to be within the genus '' Cottus'' and that the classification of the Baikal sculpins in a different taxon from ''Cottus'' was

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

Species

There are currently four recognized species in this genus: * '' Batrachocottus baicalensis'' ( Dybowski, 1874) (Bighead sculpin) * '' Batrachocottus multiradiatus'' L. S. Berg, 1907 * '' Batrachocottus nikolskii'' (L. S. Berg, 1900) (Fat sculpin) * '' Batrachocottus talievi'' Sideleva, 1999

References

Cottidae Fish of Russia Fish of Lake Baikal {{Cottidae-stub