Owstonia


Owstonia is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Cepolidae, the bandfishes. It is the only genus in the monotypic subfamily Owstoninae. They are found in deep waters of the Indian and Pacific Ocean.

Taxonomy

Owstonia was described in 1908 by the Japanese ichthyologist Shigeho Tanaka with the type species designated as Owstonia totomiensis due to it being the only species in a monotypic genus at the time of its description. In 1913 Tanaka, along with the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and John Otterbein Snyder, created the family Owstonidae for this genus. The family was merged with the Cepolidae as a subfamily in 1956 and is now regarded as a subfamily, Owstoninae, of the Cepolidae. The name of the genus, Owstonia. means "belonging to Owston". This name refers to a specimen of O. totomiensis being found in the collection of Alan Owston.

Species

There are currently 36 recognized species in this genus:

Characteristics

Owstonia bandfishes differ from the two genera in the subfamily Cepolinae by being less elongate, having only 27-33 vertebrae and 19-26 soft rays in their dorsal fin. Their dorsal and anal fins not attached to the lanceoloate caudal fin. They vary in maximum total length from in O. nalani to in O. weberi.

Distribution and habitat

Owstonia bandfishes are found in the Indo-Pacific region from the eastern coast of Africa as far east as Hawaii. They are found in deep water. Unlike the Cepoline bandfishes the fishes in Owstonia are not, other than one species, burrowers in soft substrates. They are found over rocky substrates swimming close to the bottom particularly on the upper continental slope, around atolls or oceanic fragments of crust. The exception is O. taeniosoma which has a more elongated body than its congeners and is found over sand or mud bottoms on the continental shelf.