Gadiformes

Article By:

Boschung, Herbert T. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Last reviewed:January 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.277100

An order of fishes containing the cods, codlings, codlets, grenadiers, and hakes. The Gadiformes plus the orders Ophidiiformes (pearfishes, cusk-eels, and brotulas), Batrachoidiformes (toadfishes), and Lophiiformes (anglerfishes), collectively called the Anacanthini, are thought by some authors to be a monophyletic lineage but the concept is doubted by others. The group is characterized by the absence of a myodome (a cavity in the postorbital region of the skull in which lodge the muscles of the eye; actinopterygian fishes typically have a well-developed myodome); absence of parapophyses (singular parapophysis; a long, transverse process arising from the abdominal vertebral centrum, which serves to support epipleural ribs and, in Gadidae, the gas bladder; also called transverse process) on at least the first three vertebrae; and insertion of the first few pairs of ribs in cavities of the vertebral centra rather than on the parapophyses.

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