Eulophiidae
Eulophiidae, the spinous eelpouts, is a small family of marine ray-finned fishes classified within the suborder Zoarcoidei of the order Perciformes. They are found in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy
Eulophiidae was first proposed as a family in 2013 by the Korean biologists Hyuck Joon Kwun and Jin-Koo Kim for the genus Eulophias, which had previously been classified as belonging to the family Stichaeidae. Kwun and Kim argued that the molecular phylogenetics showed that Eulophias was only distantly related to the species classified within the Stichaeidae. This was supported by further molecular phylogenetic analyses published in 2014. and the validity of the family has been accepted by the 5th edition of Fishes of the World, by FishBase and by the Catalog of Fishes. The type species of the family, Eulophias tanneri, was described from Japan by Hugh McCormick Smith in 1902, Smith thought that his new species was a blenny but was different enough from other blennies that he proposed a new subfamily, Eulophiasinae, as a monotypic subfamily of the Blennidae, Jordan and Snyder changed the name to Eulophinae in 1902. The genera Eulophias and Azygopterus were subsequently placed in the subfamily Neozarchinae in the tribe Eulophini prior to Kwun and Kim's analysis.The 5th edition of Fishes of the World classifies this family within the suborder Zoarcoidei, within the order Scorpaeniformes. Other authorities classify this family in the infraorder Zoarcales within the suborder Cottoidei of the Perciformes because removing the Scorpaeniformes from the Perciformes renders that taxon non monophyletic.