Maurolicus

"Pearlside" redirects here. This may also refer to the related Argyripnus iridescens.

Maurolicus is an oceanic ray-finned fish genus which belongs in the family Sternoptychidae. They are commonly known as pearlsides, but the brilliant pearlside is the related Argyripnus iridescens. Occasionally, "bristle-mouth fishes" is used as a common name, but that usually refers to the genus Argyripnus or the family Gonostomatidae.

Species

For long, only six species were placed in this genus, but taxonomic revisions in the 1990s established 9 new ones:^[1]

• Maurolicus amethystinopunctatus Cocco, 1838
• Maurolicus australis Hector, 1875 – pennant pearlside
• Maurolicus breviculus Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993
• Maurolicus imperatorius Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993 – emperor seamount lightfish
• Maurolicus inventionis Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993
• Maurolicus japonicus Ishikawa, 1915 – North Pacific lightfish
• Maurolicus javanicus Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993 – Javan pearlside
• Maurolicus kornilovorum Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993
• Maurolicus mucronatus Klunzinger, 1871
• Maurolicus muelleri – Mueller's pearlside, Mueller's bristle-mouth fish
• Maurolicus parvipinnis Vaillant, 1888
• Maurolicus rudjakovi Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993
• Maurolicus stehmanni Parin & Kobyliansky, 1996
• Maurolicus walvisensis Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993
• Maurolicus weitzmani Parin & Kobyliansky, 1993 – Atlantic pearlside, Weitzman's pearlside

Fossils of pearlsides are known from the Miocene.^[2]

Footnotes

References

• FishBase [2009]: Maurolicus species. Retrieved 2009-OCT-02.
• Sepkoski, Jack (2002): [Maurolicus]. In: A compendium of fossil marine animal genera. Bulletin of American Paleontology 364: 560. HTML database excerpt