Family BOVICHTIDAE

Bovichtidae

© Copyright Ros Poole.

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Introduction

Bovichtids are restricted to the southern oceans in temperate regions of Australia, New Zealand and South America as well as Antarctic and Subantarctic waters. Currently, three genera and at least nine species are recognised (Eastman & Eakin 2015; Last et al. 2002; Nelson 2006), with three genera and three described species recorded for Australia. The maximum size attained by a bovichtid in Australian waters is 28 cm.

Hardy (1988) revised the Australasian species of Bovichtus and Balushkin (2000) recognised eight species of Bovichtus with restricted distributions. Current literature supports the theory that Bovichtidae is the sister group of all other notothenioids, but may not be monophyletic (Lecointre et al. 1997; Near 2004; Dettai et al. 2012; Near et al. 2012). The Australian species are currently under study by P. Last from CSIRO Marine Laboratories. Note that Bovichtus is often incorrectly spelled Bovichthus. We follow Balushkin (1992, 2000), Eastman & Eakin (2000) and Last et al. (2002) in treating the Pseudaphritidae as distinct from the Bovichtidae (Nelson 2006). A range of recent studies employing molecular methods support this classification (see Dettai et al. 2012 and references therein).

General References

Balushkin, A.V. 1992. Classification, phylogenetic relationships, and origins of the families of the suborder Notothenioidei (Perciformes). Voprosy Ikhtiologii 32(3): 3-19 [In Russian, English translation in Journal of Ichthyology 32(7): 90-110]

Balushkin, A.V. 2000. Morphology, classification, and evolution of notothenioid fishes of the Southern Ocean (Notothenioidei, Perciformes). Journal of Ichthyology 40(Supplement 1): 74-109

Dettai, A., Berkani, M., Lautredou, A.-C., Couloux, A., Lecointre, G., Ozouf-Costaz, C. & Gallut, C. 2012. Tracking the elusive monophyly of nototheniid fishes (Teleostei) with multiple mitochondrial and nuclear markers. Marine Genomics 8: 49-58

Eastman, J.T. & Eakin, R.R. 2000. An updated species list for notothenioid fish (Perciformes; Notothenioidei), with comments on Antarctic species. Archive of Fishery and Marine Research 48(1): 11-20

Hardy, G.S. 1988. A revision of Bovichtus Cuvier, 1831 (Pisces: Bovichthyidae) from Australasia, with description of a new deepwater species from the New Zealand Subantarctic. Journal of Natural History 22: 1639-1655 figs 1-5

Last, P.R., Balushkin, A.V. & Hutchins, J.B. 2002. Halaphritis platycephala (Notothenioidei: Bovichtidae): a new genus and species of temperate icefish from southeastern Australia. Copeia 2002(2): 433-440

Lecointre, G., Bonillo, C., Ozouf-Costaz, C. & Hureau, J.-C. 1997. Molecular evidence for the origins of Antarctic fishes: paraphyly of the Bovichtidae and no indication for the monophyly of the Notothenioidei (Teleostei). Polar Biology 18: 193-208

Near, T.J. 2004. Estimating divergence times of notothenioid fishes using a fossil-calibrated molecular clock. Antarctic Science 16(1): 37-44

Near, T.J., Dornburg, A., Kühn, K.L., Eastman, J.T., Pennington, J.N., Patarnello, T., Zane, L., Fernández, D.A. & Jones, C.D. 2012. Ancient climate change, antifreeze, and the evolutionary diversification of Antarctic fishes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(9): 3434-3439

Nelson, J.S. 2006. Fishes of the World. Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 601 pp.

Common Name References

Kuiter, R.H. 1993. Coastal Fishes of South-eastern Australia. Bathurst : Crawford House Press 437 pp. [321] (Thornfishes)

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