| Abstract | A new family of bathypelagic fishes, the KASIDOROIDAE, is described from the Atalntic Ocean from localities near Bermuda and notheast of the Bahamas. The family is based on KASIDORON edom, new genus and new species, a small, black species whose outstanding characteristic is the development on the third ray of its abdominal pelvic fins of a spectacular arborescence whose terminal hollow sacs may possess a luminous substance. The familial relations seem closest to the Mirapinnidae and Eutnaenio-phoridae, order Mirapinniformes, and this order is expanded to house the Kasidoroidae. Placement of the order is itself uncertain but it is provisionally retained near the Myctophiformes and especially the Cetomimoidei. K. edom feeds on calanoid copepods. A possible use of its unusual pelvic tree is in mimicry of a siphonophore or a medusa, the fish thus gaining some measure of predator immunity. The resemblance of the tree to the nectosome of a siphonophore engenders the common name siphonophore fish. || ABSTRACT AUTHORS: Authors
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