Crestfish

Lophotus lacepede

The fish called Schopf ( Lophotidae ), also crested heads or unicorn fish, a family of gloss Fishy are ( Lampriformes ). The four 1.5 to 2 meters long expectant pelagic species live in all oceans.

Features

The elongated, ribbon-shaped fish have a long, the whole body length comprehensive dorsal fin with 220-392 fin rays. The 5-20 fin rays based anal fin is tiny and located just outside the small, normal, trained tail fin. Pelvic fins are missing or have two to six fin rays. The body is covered with small cycloid scales. An insulated draft tube swim bladder is present. The first has thick-walled and with gas glands and rete mirabile, the following two are very long, thin-walled and are located on both sides of the ink sac of an ink-like, musty -smelling liquid, the crested fish such as squid at risk and the catch from the cloaca emit.

System

The Schopf fish are divided into two genera:

• Genus Eumecichthys Eumecichthys fiski ( Günther, 1890).

• Lophotus capellei ( Temminck & Schlegel, 1845).
• Lophotus guntheri Johnston, 1883.
• Lophotus lacepede Giorna, 1809.

The extinct genus Protolophotus is known from the lower Oligocene of Iran.