Pristigasteridae is a family of

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 ...

related to the

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

s, including the

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 ...

'' Ilisha'', ''

Pellona ''Pellona'' is a genus of ray-finned fishes in the family Pristigasteridae. The genus contains six species. Three of these are restricted to freshwater habitats in tropical and subtropical South America, while ''P. dayi'' and ''P. ditchela'' are ...

'', and ''

Pristigaster ''Pristigaster'' is a small genus of ray-finned fish belonging to the family Pristigasteridae. It contains two species, both restricted to the Amazon Basin in South America. Species * '' Pristigaster cayana'' Cuvier, 1829 (Amazon hatchet herring ...

''. One common name for the

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

is longfin herring. The

taxonomic 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme of classes (a taxonomy) and the allocation ...

classification of this family is in doubt; it was traditionally divided into two subfamilies, Pelloninae and Pristigasterinae, but molecular data indicates that these are not

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

. Pristigasteridae are mostly coastal and schooling fishes of tropical and subtropical seas. Their usual length is 20-25 cm, but some

can reach 55 cm.

Genera

Pristigasteridae contains the following genera:

References

External links

* Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Fish of the Pacific Ocean Fish of the Indian Ocean Otocephala families Marine fish families Taxa named by Pieter Bleeker {{Clupeiformes-stub