Triportheidae, the hatchet characins, is a family of characiform fishes, including about 23 species. This family was raised from the status of a subfamily to family based on extensive analysis of characiform species.Oliveira, C., Avelino, G.S., Abe, K.T., Mariguela, T.C., Benine, R.C., Orti, G., Vari, R.P., & Correa e Castro, R.M. (2011): Phylogenetic relationships within the speciose family Characidae (Teleostei: Ostariophysi: Characiformes) based on multilocus analysis and extensive ingroup sampling. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 11: 275. doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-11-275
Fossils of this group date back to the Oligocene, with the fossil species †Lignobrycon ligniticus (Woodward, 1898) from Brazil.
Taxonomy The following genera are placed in this family:
Family Triportheidae Fowler, 1940 Subfamily Triportheinae Fowler, 1940 (keeled characines) Genus Lignobrycon C. H. Eigenmann & Myers, 1929 (=Moojenichthys Miranda-Ribeiro, 1956) Genus Triportheus Cope, 1872 Subfamily Agoniatinae Bleeker, 1859 (anchovy characines) Genus Agoniates Müller & Troschel, 1845 Subfamily Clupeacharacinae Fowler, 1958 (herring characines) Genus Clupeacharax Pearson, 1924 Genus Engraulisoma Castro, 1981
The following cladogram is based on a time-calibrated phylogenetic tree using genetics:
References