ABSTRACT
The stephanoberyciform family Mirapinnidae includes three genera and five described species, plus at least one undescribed species, in epipelagic tropical and temperate waters of all major oceans. Two described and one undescribed species occur in the western central North Atlantic. Mirapinnids are only known as larvae and juveniles, with no adult specimens recorded. Distinctive features include no external scales, but hair-like outgrowths (Mirapinna) or minute papillae (Eutaeniophorus and Parataeniophorus) covering the skin, a caudalfin streamer of skin visible in the smallest identified preflexion larva of 5 mm NL and growing up to 2-15 times SL in juveniles over 20 mm to 56 mm SL of the latter two genera, no fin spines, jugular pelvic fin, posterior and opposite dorsal and anal fins, usually elongate body and relatively short head with moderate snout and oblique to subvertical jaws not extending behind the eye. The unique 40 mm SL hairyfish Mirapinna esau, taken outside the area in the Northeast Atlantic in 1911, with horizontally based pectoral and pelvic fins, the latter huge and jugular, no caudal streamer but overlapping lobes of the caudal fin, and body densely covered with hair-like epidermal outgrowths (longest 1-1.5 mm), remains one of the most enigmatic in the world of fishes.
