Triportheidae Explained

Triportheidae, the hatchet characins, is a family of characiform fishes, including about 23 species. This family was raised from the status of a subfamily to family based on extensive analysis of characiform species.^[1]

Fossils of this group date back to the Oligocene, with the fossil species †Lignobrycon ligniticus (Woodward, 1898) from Brazil.^[2]

Taxonomy

The following genera are placed in this family:^[3]

• Family Triportheidae Fowler, 1940
  • Subfamily Triportheinae Fowler, 1940 (keeled characines)
    • Genus Lignobrycon Eigenmann & Myers, 1929 (=Moojenichthys Miranda-Ribeiro, 1956)
    • Genus Triportheus Cope, 1872
  • Subfamily Agoniatinae Bleeker, 1859 (anchovy characines)
    • Genus Agoniates Müller & Troschel, 1845
  • Subfamily Clupeacharacinae Fowler, 1958 (herring characines)
    • Genus Clupeacharax Pearson, 1924
    • Genus Engraulisoma Castro, 1981

Notes and References

1. Oliveira, C., Avelino, G.S., Abe, K.T., Mariguela, T.C., Benine, R.C., Orti, G., Vari, R.P., & Correa e Castro, R.M. (2011): Phylogenetic relationships within the speciose family Characidae (Teleostei: Ostariophysi: Characiformes) based on multilocus analysis and extensive ingroup sampling. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 11: 275. doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-11-275
2. Book: Malabarba, Maria Cláudia S. L. . Phylogeny and Classification of Neotropical Fishes. Part 1 - Fossils and Geological Evidence . 1998 . 69-84 . Phylogeny of Fossil Characiformes and Paleobiogeography of the Tremembé Formation, São Paulo, Brazil..
3. Web site: Fricke . R. . Eschmeyer . W. N. . Van der Laan . R. . 2025 . ESCHMEYER'S CATALOG OF FISHES: CLASSIFICATION . 2025-04-28 . California Academy of Sciences . en.