Priacanthidae is a family of fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, common name

Common name

A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...

 bigeye, comprising 18 species of marine fishes. "Catalufa

Catalufa

Catalufa is the common name for three species of fish belonging to the Priacanthidae family:*Heteropriacanthus cruentatus*Priacanthus arenatus*Pristigenys serrula - the popeye catalufa...

" is an alternate common name for some members of the priacanthidae family. The etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 of the scientific name ("prioo-", to bite + "akantha", thorn) refers to the family's very rough, spined scales. The common name of "bigeye" refers to the member species' unusually large eye

Eye

Eyes are organs that detect light and convert it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons. The simplest photoreceptors in conscious vision connect light to movement...

s, suited to their carnivorous

Carnivore

A carnivore meaning 'meat eater' is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging...

 and nocturnal lifestyles. Priacanthidae are most typically colored bright red, but other coloration patterns do exist for some species. Most species reach a maximum total length of about 30 centimeters (12 inches), although in a few species lengths of over 50 centimeters (20 inches) are known.
Members of this family are native to the tropical and subtropical regions of the Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

, Indian

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

, and Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

s, where they tend to live near rock outcroppings or reef

Reef

In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....

s, although a few are known to inhabit open waters. Some species are fished as a food fish.
The earliest identified Priacanthidae fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s date to the middle Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

 epoch of the lower Tertiary

Tertiary

The Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...

 period, or roughly 40 to 50 million years ago.

Species

There are 18 species in 4 genera:

• Genus Cookeolus
  • Longfinned bullseye, Cookeolus japonicus (Cuvier
    Georges Cuvier
    Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
    
    , 1829).
• Genus Heteropriacanthus
  • Glasseye, Heteropriacanthus cruentatus
    Heteropriacanthus cruentatus
    Heteropriacanthus cruentatus is a fish from the around the globe, in tropical seas. It occasionally makes its way into the aquarium trade. It grows to a size of 50.7 cm in length....
    
    (Lacépède, 1801).
• Genus Priacanthus
  • Alalaua, Priacanthus alalaua Jordan & Evermann, 1903.
  • Atlantic bigeye, Priacanthus arenatus Cuvier
    Georges Cuvier
    Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
    
    , 1829.
  • Paeony bulleye, Priacanthus blochii Bleeker
    Pieter Bleeker
    Pieter Bleeker was a Dutch medical doctor and ichthyologist, famous for his work on the fishes of East Asia – Atlas Ichthyologique des Orientales Neerlandaises – which was published 1862–1877....
    
    , 1853.
  • Priacanthus fitchi Starnes, 1988.
  • Moontail bullseye, Priacanthus hamrur Forsskål
    Peter Forsskål
    Peter Forsskål, sometimes spelled Pehr Forsskål, Peter Forskaol, Petrus Forskål or Pehr Forsskåhl, was a Swedish explorer, orientalist, naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus.-Early life:...
    
    , 1775.
  • Red bigeye, Priacanthus macracanthus Cuvier
    Georges Cuvier
    Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
    
    , 1829.
  • Hawaiian bigeye, Priacanthus meeki
    Priacanthus meeki
    Priacanthus meeki is a red fish found in Hawaiian and Midway Islands. It occasionally makes its way into the aquarium trade. It grows to a size of 33 cm in length. Common names are Hawaiian bigeye in English and āweoweo in the Hawaiian language...
    
    Jenkins, 1903.
  • Priacanthus nasca Starnes, 1988.
  • Elongate bulleye, Priacanthus prolixus Starnes, 1988.
  • Arrow bulleye, Priacanthus sagittarius Starnes, 1988.
  • Purple-spotted bigeye, Priacanthus tayenus Richardson
    John Richardson (naturalist)
    Sir John Richardson was a Scottish naval surgeon, naturalist and arctic explorer.Richardson was born at Dumfries. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and became a surgeon in the navy in 1807. He traveled with John Franklin in search of the Northwest Passage on the Coppermine Expedition of...
    
    , 1846.
  • Priacanthus zaiserae Starnes & Moyer, 1988.
• Genus Pristigenys
  • Short bigeye, Pristigenys alta (Gill, 1862).
  • Pristigenys meyeri (Günther, 1872).
  • Japanese bigeye, Pristigenys niphonia (Cuvier
    Georges Cuvier
    Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
    
    , 1829).
  • Popeye catalufa, Pristigenys serrula
    Pristigenys serrula
    Popeye catalufa is a fish from the Eastern Pacific. It occasionally makes its way into the aquarium trade. It grows to a size of 34cm in length....
    
    (Gilbert, 1891).