Has anyone been keeping up with the debate? There has been educated conjecture in the past that they were part of some other family, and maybe more closely related to sticklebacks than to sufnish.

Does anyone know the latest?

I have seen no recent (post-2001) papers on the subject. The two competing hypotheses seem to be- sister group to Centrarchidae s.s. and ordinal-level member of the unfortunately-named "Smegmamorpha". Smegmamorpha as proposed includes not only sticklebacks but seahorses and pipefishes, silversides and rainbowfishes, flyingfishes and halfbeaks, spiny and swamp eels, mullets, killifishes and livebearers, etc.

Thank you. That's the last I'd heard, too. I wanted to check on the forum, though, to see if any smart academics had learned of any recent findings.

I have seen no recent (post-2001) papers on the subject. The two competing hypotheses seem to be- sister group to Centrarchidae s.s. and ordinal-level member of the unfortunately-named "Smegmamorpha". Smegmamorpha as proposed includes not only sticklebacks but seahorses and pipefishes, silversides and rainbowfishes, flyingfishes and halfbeaks, spiny and swamp eels, mullets, killifishes and livebearers, etc.

Smegmamorpha as proposed includes not only sticklebacks but seahorses and pipefishes, silversides and rainbowfishes, flyingfishes and halfbeaks, spiny and swamp eels, mullets, killifishes and livebearers, etc.

Is this implying that those groups all represent one branch of a phylogenetic tree, or just that taxonomists haven't yet figured out where to put them?

Interestingly, the top Google result for Smegmamorpha is http://en.wiktionary...ki/Smegmamorpha, which lists as its source a NANFA page that no longer exists.

This subject prompted me to spend the past 1/2 hour or so browsing Wikipedia to see what's going on in biological taxonomy these days. In some ways it's hard to believe that we won't eventually wind up with a system like PhyloCode that abandons the idea of trying to name each rank of the phylogenetic tree (Kingdom, Phylum, Class...). Then again, actually discussing how two animals fit in the tree without using named ranks seems equally impossible. Debate on how to reconcile these problems certainly isn't new, but as molecular phylogeny continues to explode it's only going to get exponentially more complicated. It'll be really interesting to see how this all develops over the next few decades...

From TOLweb:

The Smegmamorpha, with over 2,000 species in 37 families, are an unlikely and diverse assemblage comprising spiny and swamp eels, the Synbranchiformes (100 species in 3 families), grey mullets, the Mugiliformes (70 species in 1 family), pygmy sunfishes, the Elassomatiformes (6 species in 1 family), sticklebacks, pipefishes and allies, the Gasterosteiformes (275 species in 11 families), and the speciose silversides, flyingfishes, killifishes, and allies, the Atherinomorpha (1550 species in 21 familes and 3 orders). As recognized by Johnson and Patterson (1993), smegmamorphs are united by a single specialization, a unique attachment of the first epineural at the tip of a prominent transverse process on the first vertebra, but several additional specializations are shared by most of them. To date, smegmamorph monophyly has not been challenged by a comprehensive morphological analysis. Molecular analyses have failed to capture smegmamorph monophyly, although major components of the group have been recovered (e.g., Wiley et al. 2000; Chen et al., 2003; Miya et al., 2000, 2003, 2005).

And the cited papers:

Chen, W.-J., C., Bonillo, and G. Lecointre. 2003. Repeatability of clades as a criterion of reliability: a case study for molecular phylogeny of Acanthomorpha (Teleostei) with larger number of taxa. Mol. Phylo. Evol. 26(2):262-288.

Johnson, G. D. and C. Patterson. 1993. Percomorph phylogeny: a survey of acanthomorphs and a new proposal. Bull. Mar. Sci. 52(1):554-626.

Miya, M. A, A. Kawaguchi, and M. Nishida. 2001. Mitogenomic exploration of higher teleostean phylogenies: a case study of moderate-scale evolutionary genomics with 38 newly determined complete mitochondrial DNA sequences. Mol. Biol. Evol. 18(11)1993-2009.

Miya, M., H. Takeshima, H. Endo, N. B. Ishiguro, J. G. Inous, T. Mukai, T. P. Satoh, M. Yamagucki, A. Kawaguchi, K. Mabuchi, S. M. Shirai, and M. Nishida. 2003. Major patterns of higher teleost phylogenies: a new perspective based on 100 complete mitochondrial DNA sequences. Mol. Phylo. Evol. 26:121-138.

Miya, M., Satoh, T.P., and Nishida. 2005. The phylogenetic position of toadfishes (Order Batrachoidiformes)in the higher ray-finned fishes as inferred from partitioned Bayesian analysis of 102 whole mitochondrial sequences. Biol. Jour. Linn. Soc. 85:289-306

Wiley, E. O., G. D. Johnson, and W. W. Dimmick. 2000. The interrelationships of acanthomorph fishes: a total evidence approach using morphological and molecular data. Biochem. Syst. Evol. 28(2000):319-350.

It depends on if you rely on data to support hypotheses or turn data into baubles by weighting characters to support beliefs, i.e., by deciding a certain character has more importance than another a posteriori of knowing what characters support certain relationships. I'm decidedly in one camp about the ability of morphology to resolve phylogenetic relationships... it has very limited use outside of delimiting species and/or populations. Yes there are cool things like anapsids vs. synapsids, but those are few and are functionally really constrained (as in if a group has a skull it ain't going to have no skull in the sister lineage) as opposed to the characters used to define differences more recently diversifying groups.

I say that morphology used to determine deep phylogeny is essentially baubles because there is no understanding... nor can there be... of how things influenced those traits in their evolution and that many of the morphological characters used by us systematists are so plastic/variable, so any weight assigned to those traits is only assigned by the person doing the analysis.

I haven't been following this debate real closely, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm reading that the Elassomatids are being placed in Smegmamorpha due to one morphological character and no other particularly concrete evidence? Doesn't the whole "convergent evolution" strip such a classification of a great deal of its credibility? Or am I misunderstanding something?

An interesting new paper on acanthomorph (spiny-rayed fish) phylogeny:

Li et al. 2009

Some highlights in relation to this thread are:

Smegmamorpha is not recovered, with the component parts widely scattered throughout the Acanthomorpha.

Centrarchidae and Elassomatidae are sister taxa, with Moronidae as the sister of Centrarchidae + Elassomatidae. The three together are labeled clade M'' and are one of many branches in a huge unresolved crown-group polytomy. However, the authors don't believe clade M'' is highly reliable:

• Clade M′ (Sciaenidae (croakers) and Haemulidae (grunts)) has not been found by molecular studies because of lack of representatives included for these families. However, Smith and Craig (2007) did sample those two families but they do not appear related to each other in their tree. Also, from partially independent sequence data in Chen et al. (2007), haemulids appear close to lutjanids and sparids while sciaenids are closer to drepanids and chaetodontids.

• The same applies for clade M″ grouping the Centrarchidae (sunfishes), the Moronidae (temperate basses) and the Elassomatidae (pygmy sunfishes). Moreover, that clade contradicts the association of the Moronidae in Dettaï and Lecointre (submitted for publication) with some members of the labroids (i.e. labrids and scarids) and some members of the polyphyletic trachinoids. In Chen et al. (2007), Elassoma is not related to moronids and this family is closer to labrids and scarids. Clade M″ should be evaluated again with more taxa.

Another clade found in some but not all of their trees is what they call extended clade N. This includes the members of clade M'' and a diverse group of mainly marine fishes.

• Extended N: clade N including Monodactylidae (fingerfishes), Lutjanidae (snappers), Leiognathidae (ponyfishes), Cepolidae (bandfishes), Labridae (wrasses), Scaridae (parrotfishes) and Moronidae, Centrarchidae, Elassomatidae, Callanthiidae (groppos), Priacanthiidae (bigeyes), Caesionidae (fusiliers), Scatophagidae (scats), Malacanthidae (tilefishes), Datnioididae (tigerperches), Kyphosidae (sea chubs), Aplodactylidae (marblefishes), Cheilodactylidae (morwongs), Sparidae (porgies), Champsodontidae (crocodile toothfishes), clades X, G, M′ and R.

You may notice that this group includes some labroids (Scaridae and Labridae) but not others (particularly Cichlidae). Apparently the labroids are at least diphyletic and the labroid mouth apparatus has arisen more than once. It is significant (to hobbyists if not to taxonomists) that the sunfish are still found to be only very distantly related to cichlids, despite the similarity of some forms from the two groups.

The Elassoma-Stickleback connection was looking pretty good to me (based only on appearance, behavior, and gut feelings). So, they're nowhere even close ? Oh well.

Looks like it. The sticklebacks themselves were also found to be polyphyletic in this study; the paradox sticklebacks (Indostomus) are placed closer to the swamp eels than to the typical sticklebacks.

Thanks.

An interesting new paper on acanthomorph (spiny-rayed fish) phylogeny:

Li et al. 2009

Some highlights in relation to this thread are:

Smegmamorpha is not recovered, with the component parts widely scattered throughout the Acanthomorpha.

Centrarchidae and Elassomatidae are sister taxa, with Moronidae as the sister of Centrarchidae + Elassomatidae. The three together are labeled clade M'' and are one of many branches in a huge unresolved crown-group polytomy. However, the authors don't believe clade M'' is highly reliable:



Another clade found in some but not all of their trees is what they call extended clade N. This includes the members of clade M'' and a diverse group of mainly marine fishes.



You may notice that this group includes some labroids (Scaridae and Labridae) but not others (particularly Cichlidae). Apparently the labroids are at least diphyletic and the labroid mouth apparatus has arisen more than once. It is significant (to hobbyists if not to taxonomists) that the sunfish are still found to be only very distantly related to cichlids, despite the similarity of some forms from the two groups.

Interestingly enough, last year I found out that if the state says elassoma are sunfish then they are indeed sunfish, I found that out in court, lol

Interestingly enough, last year I found out that if the state says elassoma are sunfish then they are indeed sunfish, I found that out in court, lol

Wow, how did they prove that in court, by old classifications or is there new Dna evidence?

Wow, how did they prove that in court, by old classifications or is there new Dna evidence?

My bad, it was enneacanthus, not elassoma, i know better my mind just wasn't working right , sorry.

Interestingly enough, last year I found out that if the state says elassoma are sunfish then they are indeed sunfish, I found that out in court, lol

Moon,
Without going into the nitty-gritty, is there a take-home message you could give us? No need to expose all, but it sounds like there was some aspects from that experience that many of us could learn from. Would probably require a separate topic, though.

Moon,
Without going into the nitty-gritty, is there a take-home message you could give us? No need to expose all, but it sounds like there was some aspects from that experience that many of us could learn from. Would probably require a separate topic, though.

Well what it boils down to is no matter how long you have been collecting in your state (37 years for me in NC)no matter how many times you collected a certain fish or been ignored by wildlife officials, when it comes down to the law if you are violating it, you are, so read the laws and follow them, even if it means certain fish that are impossible to catch any way but nets are still illegal to catch with nets.