Batfish Family – Ogocephalidae

There are currently THREE members of the Batfish or Ogocephalidae, two from the Atlantic Ocean and one from the Pacific Ocean, presented in this website:

FROM THE ATLANTIC (2):

FROM THE PACIFIC (1):

The fishes of the Batfish or Ogcocephalidae Family are a group of bottom dwelling specially-adapted fish found in tropical and subtropical parts of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, and include sixty-four global species that have been placed in ten genera of which eleven species in five genera are found in Mexican waters, ten from four genera in the Atlantic and one from the Pacific Ocean. In Mexico, they are known as murciélagos.

The Batfishes have flattened arrow shaped bodies that reach a maximum length of 38 cm (15 inches). Most are found in very deep, lightless, global tropical waters at depths between 198 m (650 feet) and 1,000 m (3,300 feet). They have pointed to rounded heads and possess an illicium between the eyes that is a movable fishing rod that is used to attract prey. They have small gill openings behind the upper base of the pectoral fins, small anal and dorsal fins at the rear of the body and large arm-like pectoral fins and smaller arm-like pelvic fins under the body that are inserted well before the pectoral fins. They are slow moving poor swimmers that are well camouflaged and classic lie-in-wait ambush predators. They “walk” on the bottom in a side-to-side shuffling motion utilizing their pectoral and pelvic fins and consume crabs, fish, mollusks, shrimps and worms. The use their wide flat body for defense and can lie on the floor bottom. Reproduction involves pelagic eggs and larvae that eventually settle to the bottom. They are, in general, poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

From a conservation perspective the majority of the Ogcocephalidae Family members are considered to be of Least Concern, with stable widely distributed populations. They are of limited interest to most.