ABSTRACT
The order comprises 9 families of small deep-sea fishes, most of which are rarely captured. They form two groups with the Stephanoberycidae, Gibberichthyidae, and Melamphaidae that have been included in the Beryciformes, and the Barbourisiidae, Cetomimidae, Megalomycteridae, Mirapinnidae, and Rondeltiidae that have been placed in their own order Cetomimiformes. One family, Hispidoberycidae, does not occur in the western North Atlantic. In a recent paper Lyczkowski-Shultz et al. (2000) followed earlier workers and included the first three families in the Beryciformes. As explained by Nelson (1994) we follow Johnson & Patterson (1993) and include the Cetomimiformes in the Stephanoberyciformes.
