Antigoniidae
Antigoniidae, the deepwater boarfishes, is a family of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the order Acanthuriformes. It contains a single extant genus. These fishes are found in the warmer oceans throughout the world.
Taxonomy
Antigoniinae was first named as a taxonomic grouping in 1898 by the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann. The 5th edition of Fishes of the World classifies Antigoniinae as a subfamily of the Caproidae, within the order Caproiformes, as do other authorities. However, more recently, other authorities have classified this taxon as a distinct family, the Antigoniidae, and classify it and the Caproidae in the order Acanthuriformes.The alleged relationship between Caproidae and Antigoniidae has always been poorly attested, and at least some recent studies suggest that this former classification was paraphyletic, with antigoniids being the sister group to the Lophiiformes and Tetraodontiformes, while caproids are sister to the Priacanthidae.
Genera
Antigoniinae contains one extant and one extinct genera:Despite its name, †Proantigonia from the Oligocene and Miocene of Russia and Europe is more closely related to caproids.
An unusual deep-bodied fossil fish, potentially the earliest known antigoniid, is known from the earliest Eocene-aged Fur Formation of Denmark; however, it does not preserve any of the distinguishing features of antigoniids, and its taxonomy thus remains unknown.