Cichliformes is an

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

of fishes. Its members were previously classified under the order

Perciformes Perciformes (), also called the Acanthopteri, is an order or superorder of ray-finned fish in the clade Percomorpha. ''Perciformes'' means " perch-like". Among the well-known members of this group are perches and darters ( Percidae), and als ...

, but now many authorities consider it to be an independent order within the subseries Ovalentaria. The earliest fossils are known from the Eocene.

Taxonomy

There are three families within the Cichliformes; the leaffishes are a small family consisting of 4

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

and 5

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

, the convict blennies are a small family consisting of a single genus and two species, while the cichlids are one of the largest vertebrate families with over 202 genera and more than 1700 species. These families look physically dissimilar from one another, with only molecular data revealing their close relationships. The following taxonomy is based on the Catalog of Fishes (2025) * Polycentridae T. N. Gill, 1858 (leaffishes) * Pholidichthyidae D.S. Jordan, 1896 (Convict blennies) *

Cichlidae Cichlids () are a large, diverse, and widespread family of percomorph fish in the family Cichlidae, order Cichliformes. At least 1,760 species have been scientifically described, making it one of the largest vertebrate families, with on ...

Bonaparte, 1835 (Cichlids)

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q35134269 Ovalentaria Ray-finned fish orders Taxa named by Marcus Elieser Bloch Taxa named by Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider