Zoarcoidei is a suborder of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the orderScorpaeniformes. The suborder includes the wolffishes, gunnels and eelpouts. The suborder includes about 400 species. These fishes predominantly found in the boreal seas of the northern hemisphere but they have colonised the southern hemisphere.
Zoarcoidei was first proposed as a taxonomic grouping by the American zoologist Theodore Gill in 1893 as the superfamily Zoarceoidea.[1] The 5th edition of Fishes of the World classifies the Zoarcoidei as a suborder within the order Scorpaeniformes.[2] Other authorities classify this taxon as the infraorder Zoarcales within the suborder Cottoidei of the Perciformes because removing the Scorpaeniformes from the Perciformes renders that taxon non monophyletic.[3] The monophyly of this grouping has still not been fully ascertained but it is generally accepted that the most basalfamily is Bathymasteridae.[2]
The Zoarcoidei families all share a single feature, the possession of a single nostril, and there is no other features or group of features which mark out the Zoarcoids as a taxonomic grouping.[2]
The Zoarcoidei is thought to have originated in the northern hemisphere, particularly the northwestern Pacific Ocean and one of the families, the Zoarcidae, has colonised the southern hemisphere on a number of occasions.[7]
^Hyuck Joon Kwun; Jin-Koo Kim (2003). "Molecular phylogeny and new classification of the genera Eulophias and Zoarchias (PISCES, Zoarcoidei)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 69 (3): 787–795. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.06.025.
^Radchenko, Olga (2016). "Timeline of the evolution of eelpouts from the suborder Zoarcoidei (Perciformes) based on DNA variability". Journal of Ichthyology. 56 (4): 556–568. doi:10.1134/S0032945216040123. S2CID255269520.
