Alectis
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Alectis Temporal range: 55–0 Ma Eocene to Present |
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| juvenile Alectis ciliaris | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Family: | Carangidae |
| Genus: |
Alectis Rafinesque, 1815 |
| Type species | |
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Gallus virescens Lacepède, 1802 |
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| Species | |
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See Text |
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| Synonyms | |
See Text
Alectis is a genus of fish in the family Carangidae containing three extant species, all of which are large marine fishes. They are commonly known as threadfish, diamond trevallies and occasionally pompanos, although they have no close affiliation with the true pompano genus.
Alectis is one of 33 genera in the jack and horse mackerel family Carangidae. The Carangidae are perciform fishes in the suborder Percoidei.
The first fish in the genus to be described was Alectis ciliaris under the genus name of Zeus, part of the dory family. Lacépède recognized the species was not a dory and assigned it to a new genus, Gallus, however this was preoccupied by a bird. In 1815, Rafinesque proposed the name Alectis, into which three species were eventually placed. Georges Cuvier proposed a second name, Scyris for the genus in 1829, but Alectis had priority and has therefore been cemented for the time being. The name Alectis is derived from one of three Erinyes in the Greek mythology; daughter of Acheronte with a terrible rage.
A single species has been identified the fossil record, Alectis simus (Stinton, 1979), from the Eocene period of England. It was found alongside a number of extinct and extant carangid genera including Caranx and Usacaranx (extinct).
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