MarBEF Data System - ERMS - Echeneidae Rafinesque, 1810

WoRMS taxon details

Echeneidae Rafinesque, 1810

AphiaID

125533 (urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:125533)

Classification

Status

accepted

Rank

Family

Parent

Carangiformes

Direct children (11)

Ordering

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Genus Echeneis Linnaeus, 1758
Genus Phtheirichthys Gill, 1862
Genus Remora Gill, 1862
Genus Echensis accepted as Echeneis Linnaeus, 1758 (misspelling)
Genus Echneis accepted as Echeneis Linnaeus, 1758 (misspelling)
Genus Leptecheneis Gill, 1864 accepted as Echeneis Linnaeus, 1758
Genus Phthierichthys accepted as Phtheirichthys Gill, 1862 (misspelling)
Genus Remilegia Gill, 1862 accepted as Remora Gill, 1862
Genus Remorina Jordan & Evermann, 1896 accepted as Remora Gill, 1862 (synonym)
Genus Remoropsis Gill, 1863 accepted as Remora Gill, 1862
Genus Rhombochirus Gill, 1863 accepted as Remora Gill, 1862

Environment

marine, brackish, ~~terrestrial~~

Original description

Not documented

Descriptive notes

Description Distribution: Atlantic, Indian and Pacific. Elongate body, with the head flattened and bearing a sucking disc having 10-28...

Description Distribution: Atlantic, Indian and Pacific. Elongate body, with the head flattened and bearing a sucking disc having 10-28 transverse movable lamina (disc said to have evolved from a spinous dorsal fin). Mandible jutted. Scales small and cycloid. Spines absent in dorsal and anal fins. About 18-40 soft rays each in dorsal and anal fins. No swim bladder. Branchiostegal rays 8-11. With the sucking disc, the remora hitches to larger animals such as sharks, bony fishes, turtles or mammals. Some species reportedly show considerable host specificity. About 1 m maximum length (reported for Echeines naucrates); the smallest species measuring 17 cm. [details]

Taxonomic citation

Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. (2025). FishBase. Echeneidae Rafinesque, 1810. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=125533 on 2025-04-13

Taxonomic edit history

Date

action

2004-12-21 15:54:05Z

created

van der Land, Jacob

2015-04-17 08:48:21Z

changed

Bailly, Nicolas

2021-06-30 10:22:35Z

changed

Bailly, Nicolas

Licensing

The webpage text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

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Nomenclature

basis of record van der Land, J.; Costello, M.J.; Zavodnik, D.; Santos, R.S.; Porteiro, F.M.; Bailly, N.; Eschmeyer, W.N.; Froese, R. (2001). Pisces, in: Costello, M.J. et al. (Ed.) (2001). European register of marine species: a check-list of the marine species in Europe and a bibliography of guides to their identification. Collection Patrimoines Naturels, 50: pp. 357-374 (look up in IMIS) [details]

Taxonomy

taxonomy source Van Der Laan, R.; Eschmeyer, W. N.; Fricke, R. (2014). Family-group names of Recent fishes. Zootaxa. 3882(1): 1-230., available online at https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3882.1.1 [details] Available for editors

[request]

Other

context source (PeRMS) Chirichigno, N.; Cornejo, M. (2001). Catálogo comentado de los peces marinos del Perú. 2ª ed. Instituto del Mar de Perú. Publicación Especial. Callao. 314 p. [details]

additional source Fricke, R., Eschmeyer, W. N. & Van der Laan, R. (eds). (2025). ECoF. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Genera, Species, References. California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco. Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2025., available online at http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/Ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp [details]

+−

Present

Inaccurate

Introduced: alien

Containing type locality

Unreviewed

Definitions

[show lower level...]

Language	Name
English	remoras	[details]
Japanese	コバンザメ科	[details]
Norwegian Bokmål	sugefiskfamilien	[details]
Norwegian Nynorsk	sugefiskfamilien	[details]

To Biological Information System for Marine Life (BISMaL)
To European Nucleotide Archive, ENA (Echeneidae)
To Genbank
To ITIS