Evermannellidae
by R. K. Johnson
Relatively large midwater fishes (about 120-180 mm); body compressed head large; eye varying from small, non-tubular and directed laterally (Odontostomops) to large, tubular and directed upward (Evermannella),without sclerotic bony plates. Mouth large; maxilla excluded from gape dentary teeth in 1 or 2 series; premaxillary teeth numerous, small, retrorse uniserial; front tooth on each palatine an enormous lanceolate and barbed or sabre-like and unbarbed fang. Basihyal much reduced, lacking teeth basibranchial teeth lacking. Normal gillrakers absent, replaced by gill teeth fixed on bony plates, restricted to ceratobranchial of second gill arch. Branchiostegal rays 8 (4 + 4). All fins with soft rays only; dorsal fin with 10-13 rays; adipose dorsal fin present; pelvic fins abdominal, with 9 finrays. Scales lacking on head and body; lateral line scales lacking, replaced (in some) by a series of membranous, non-ossified shield-like structures arranged segmentally along midlateral body surface. Tail musculature with an externally visible tripartite division, with epaxial and hypaxial musculature separated by a midlateral band of muscle tissue centred and arranged longitudinally on the vertebral column. No gap in ossification between first vertebral centrum and skull. Swimbladder absent. Luminous tissue present in Coccorella; larvae with discrete peritonal pigment sections.
Oceanic and mesopelagic. Feeding on other midwater fishes, squids, able to engorge very large food particles. According to scanty information on vertical distribution, larvae occur at shallower depths than adults, the latter occupying a wide vertical range in the upper 1,000 m; no evidence for diel migration. Metamorphosis gradual and essentially complete in specimens over 30 mm SL. Synchronous hermaphrodites with functional ovotestis.
Genera 3; in Clofnam area 2, probably 3.
Recent revisions: Johnson (in press).