Peristedion is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the subfamily Peristediinae, the armoured gurnards or armored sea robins. These fishes are found in Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific ocean waters.
Taxonomy Peristedion was first described as a genus in 1801 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède when he described Peristedion marmalat from the Mediterranean Sea and the Moluccas. In 1826 Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent designated P. marmalat as the type species of the genus. P. marmalat is now treated as a junior synonym of Carl Linnaeus's Trigla cataphracta, which he described from the Mediterranean Sea off southern France. Within the family Peristediidae there are 2 clades. One, which contains Peristedion, is a monotypic clade, while the other clade is made up of the remaining 5 genera of the Peristediidae. The name of the genus Peristedion is a combination of peri, meaning "around", and stedion, which is a diminutive of stethos, which is Greek for "breast" or "chest", an allusion to the bony plates lining the underside of the body, similar to a plastron, the feature Lacépède use to distinguish Peristidion from Trigla.
Species Peristedion currently contains 24 recognized species: Peristedion altipinne Regan, 1903 Peristedion amblygenys Fowler, 1938 Ono, M. & Kawai, T. (2014): Review of Armored Searobins of the Genus Peristedion(Teleostei: Peristediidae) in Japanese Waters. Species Diversity, 19 (2): 117–131. Peristedion antillarum Teague, 1961 (Long-nose armoured searobin) Peristedion barbiger Garman, 1899 Peristedion brevirostre (Günther, 1860) (Flat-head searobin) Peristedion cataphractum (Linnaeus, 1758) (African armoured searobin) Peristedion crustosum Garman, 1899 Peristedion ecuadorense Teague, 1961 Peristedion gracile Goode & T. H. Bean, 1896 (Slender searobin) Peristedion greyae G. C. Miller, 1967 Peristedion imberbe Poey, 1861 Peristedion liorhynchus (Günther, 1872) Peristedion longicornutum Fricke, Kawai, Yato & Motomura, 2017 (Longhorn armored gurnard) Peristedion longispatha Goode & T. H. Bean] 1886 Peristedion miniatum Goode, 1880 (Armoured searobin) Peristedion nesium W. A. Bussing, 2010 Peristedion orientale Temminck & Schlegel, 1843 Peristedion paucibarbiger Castro-Aguirre & García-Domínguez, 1984 Peristedion richardsi Kawai, 2016 Kawai, T. (2016): Peristedion richardsi sp. nov. (Actinopterygii: Teleostei: Peristediidae) from Indonesian waters, with synonymy between Peristedion riversandersoni Alcock, 1894 and Peristedion nierstraszi Weber, 1913. Zootaxa, 4171 (2): 335–346. Peristedion riversandersoni Alcock, 1894 Peristedion thompsoni Fowler, 1952 (Rim-spine searobin) Peristedion truncatum (Günther, 1880) (Black armoured searobin) Peristedion unicuspis G. C. Miller, 1967 Peristedion weberi J. L. B. Smith, 1934
Characteristics Peristedion armoured gurnards have a ventrally flattened head and body which is protected by a bony armour of plates and spines. There is a two-pointed rostral projection on the snout and there are barbels under the lower jaw. They do not have robust spines on the preoperculum. The first dorsal fin has 7 or 8 spines and the second dorsal fin has between 18 and 20 soft rays while the anal fin has between 20 and 23 soft rays. There are between 11 and 13 fin rays enclosed within the membrane of the pectoral fin plus the two lowermost rays being separate. The pelvic fins are widely spaced, located under the base of the pectoral fins, and have 1 spine and 5 soft rays. The smallest species in the genus is P. paucibarbiger, which has a maximum published standard length of . The largest are the African armoured sea robin (P. cataphractum) and the armoured gurnard (P. liorhynchus) both of which have maximum published standard lengths of .
Distribution Peristedion armoured gurnards occur on either sides of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Indo-West-Pacific and eastern Pacific Ocean.
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