Nomeidae, the driftfishes, are a family of

scombriform Scombriformes, also known as Pelagia and Pelagiaria, is an order of ray-finned fish within the clade Percomorpha. It contains 287 extant species in 16 families, most of which were previously classified under the suborders Scombroidei and Stroma ...

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 found in tropical and subtropical waters throughout the world. The family includes about 16 species. The largest species, such as the Cape fathead, ''Cubiceps capensis'', reach 1 m in length. Several species are found in association with

siphonophore Siphonophorae (from Ancient Greek σίφων (siphōn), meaning "tube" and -φόρος (-phóros), meaning "bearing") is an order within Hydrozoa, a class of marine organisms within the phylum Cnidaria. According to the World Register of Marine ...

s (which are colonies of tiny individual animals that have specialised functions which resemble jellyfish) such as the

Portuguese man o' war The Portuguese war (''Physalia physalis''), also known as the man-of-war or bluebottle, is a marine hydrozoan found in the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is the only species in the genus ''Physalia'', which in turn is the only genus in ...

; the

man-of-war fish In Royal Navy jargon, a man-of-war (also man-o'-war, or simply man) was a powerful warship or frigate of the 16th to the 19th century, that was frequently used in Europe. Although the term never acquired a specific meaning, it was usually rese ...

, ''Nomeus gronovii'', is known to eat its tentacles and gonads, as well as feeding on other

jellyfish Jellyfish, also known as sea jellies or simply jellies, are the #Life cycle, medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, which is a major part of the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animal ...

es. Other species of driftfishes are associated with the floating seaweed ''

Sargassum ''Sargassum'' is a genus of brown macroalgae ( seaweed) in the order Fucales of the Phaeophyceae class. Numerous species are distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world, where they generally inhabit shallow water and ...

''. The Cape fathead feeds mainly on

salp A salp (: salps, also known colloquially as “sea grape”) or salpa (: salpae or salpas) is a barrel-shaped, Plankton, planktonic tunicate in the family Salpidae. The salp moves by contracting its gelatinous body in order to pump water thro ...

s. Some species of '' Cubiceps'' are occasionally caught on pelagic longlines set for swordfish. Fossil genera include '' Psenicubiceps'' Daniltshenko, 1980, ''?Psenes macrolepis'' Arambourg, 1967, and '' Rybapina'' Bannikov, 1993 from the

Early Oligocene The Rupelian is, in the geologic timescale, the older of two age (geology), ages or the lower of two stage (stratigraphy), stages of the Oligocene epoch (geology), Epoch/series (stratigraphy), Series. It spans the time between . It is preceded b ...

of the

North Caucasus The North Caucasus, or Ciscaucasia, is a subregion in Eastern Europe governed by Russia. It constitutes the northern part of the wider Caucasus region, which separates Europe and Asia. The North Caucasus is bordered by the Sea of Azov and the B ...

and Iran. An older, indeterminate ''Rybapina'' specimen from the

middle Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', ' Dawn') a ...

(

Bartonian The Bartonian is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy's (ICS) geologic time scale, a stage or age in the middle of the Eocene Epoch or Series. The Bartonian Age spans the time between . It is preceded by the Lutetian and is follow ...

) of the North Caucasus represents the earliest record of the group. '' Cubariomma'' Bannikov, 2018 from the Early Oligocene of the North Caucasus may also be either a nomeid or an ariommatid.

Timeline of genera

ImageSize = width:800px height:auto barincrement:15px PlotArea = left:10px bottom:50px top:10px right:10px Period = from:-65.5 till:10 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:-65.5 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:-65.5 TimeAxis = orientation:hor AlignBars = justify Colors = #legends id:CAR value:claret id:ANK value:rgb(0.4,0.3,0.196) id:HER value:teal id:HAD value:green id:OMN value:blue id:black value:black id:white value:white id:cenozoic value:rgb(0.54,0.54,0.258) id:paleogene value:rgb(0.99,0.6,0.32) id:paleocene value:rgb(0.99,0.65,0.37) id:eocene value:rgb(0.99,0.71,0.42) id:oligocene value:rgb(0.99,0.75,0.48) id:neogene value:rgb(0.999999,0.9,0.1) id:miocene value:rgb(0.999999,0.999999,0) id:pliocene value:rgb(0.97,0.98,0.68) id:quaternary value:rgb(0.98,0.98,0.5) id:pleistocene value:rgb(0.999999,0.95,0.68) id:holocene value:rgb(0.999,0.95,0.88) BarData= bar:eratop bar:space bar:periodtop bar:space bar:NAM1 bar:NAM2 bar:space bar:period bar:space bar:era PlotData= align:center textcolor:black fontsize:M mark:(line,black) width:25 shift:(7,-4) bar:periodtop from: -65.5 till: -55.8 color:paleocene text:

Paleocene The Paleocene ( ), or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 mya (unit), million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), ...

from: -55.8 till: -33.9 color:eocene text:

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

from: -33.9 till: -23.03 color:oligocene text:

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

from: -23.03 till: -5.332 color:miocene text:

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

from: -5.332 till: -2.588 color:pliocene text: Plio. from: -2.588 till: -0.0117 color:pleistocene text: Pleist. from: -0.0117 till: 0 color:holocene text: H. bar:eratop from: -65.5 till: -23.03 color:paleogene text:

Paleogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...

from: -23.03 till: -2.588 color:neogene text:

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

from: -2.588 till: 0 color:quaternary text: Q. PlotData= align:left fontsize:M mark:(line,white) width:5 anchor:till align:left color:oligocene bar:NAM1 from: -33.9 till: 0 text: Psenes color:pliocene bar:NAM2 from: -5.332 till: 0 text: Cubiceps PlotData= align:center textcolor:black fontsize:M mark:(line,black) width:25 bar:period from: -65.5 till: -55.8 color:paleocene text:

from: -55.8 till: -33.9 color:eocene text:

from: -33.9 till: -23.03 color:oligocene text:

from: -23.03 till: -5.332 color:miocene text:

from: -5.332 till: -2.588 color:pliocene text: Plio. from: -2.588 till: -0.0117 color:pleistocene text: Pleist. from: -0.0117 till: 0 color:holocene text: H. bar:era from: -65.5 till: -23.03 color:paleogene text:

from: -23.03 till: -2.588 color:neogene text:

from: -2.588 till: 0 color:quaternary text: Q.

References

* Taxa named by Albert Günther {{Scombroidei-stub