Callanthias

Callanthias is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Callanthiidae. These fishes are primarily found in subtropical parts of the Pacific Ocean, with one species marginally in the Indian Ocean and two species in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

==Taxonomy== Callanthias was first proposed as a monospecific genus in 1839 by the English zoologist Richard Thomas Lowe when he described Callanthias paradiseus. Lowe’s Callanthias paradiseus is now known to be a synonym of Lepimphis ruber, described by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1810 from Palermo on Sicily. The relationships of Callianthias have been subject of some uncertainty in the past and they were previously regarded as a very aberrant genus of the Serranidae, while other authors placed it in the Grammatidae. Callanthias is one of two genera in the family Callanthiidae, the other is Grammatonotus, which the 5th edition of Fishes of the World places in the order Spariformes.