Dercetidae

Before the naming of the family, multiple genera that have been placed within Dercetidae were placed within a group referred to as Sclerodermis until Arthur Smith Woodward would coin the name Dercetidae in 1901. He would place the family close to the other more elongate fish families Halosauridae and Notacanthidae. This, however, was only based on a number of more basic similarities such as the elongated skulls and postcrania of the two groups. A 2025 paper by Valéria Gallo and colleagues would build upon this with the description of the genus Antarctichthys which contained a phylogeny with a focus on Dercetidae. Both this paper and the previous one by Alvarado-Ortega and Díaz-Cruz would use a phylogeny originally in a 2011 publication by Hilda Silva and Valéria Gallo. This matrix would be modified in the 2021 publication and would be edited again in the 2025 paper to remove 23 characters that did nothing at the family level. Below is the cladogram generated using Implied Weighted Maximum Parsimony Analysis in the 2021 paper along with the single cladogram from the 2025 publication. Alvarado-Ortega & Díaz-Cruz (2021) |style=font-size:85%;line-height:85%|label1=Dercetidae}} Gallo et al. (2025) }} }} }} }} }} }} }} }} }} }}|style=font-size:85%;line-height:85%|label1=Aulopiformes}} == Description ==

Members of Dercetidae are generally known to be marine fish with long, shallow bodies with similarly long skulls. In some genera, such as Antarctichthys and Rhynchodercetis, the upper jaw would extend past the lower one and form a snout. One of the few exceptions to this is Antarctichthys, which lacked teeth on both the top and bottom dentition. Similar to other enchodontoids, dercetids were generally small though large members such as Dercetis magnificus, a fish with a standard length of over , are present in the clade. Another feature that all members share is the lack of scales outside of large ones, commonly referred to as scutes, that ran down the length of the body with these forming one to three rows depending on the species. Though still argued against by some authors, a defining feature of all dercetids is the reduced neural spines with them being equal to or less than the total vertebral length. == Biogeography ==

Dercetids are generally associated with the Tethys Ocean with genera being found throughout the world. . A 2016 publication by Hilda Maria Andrade da Silva and Valéria Gallo would put forward the idea that the movement of the family, along with other enchodontoids, was associated with ocean currents and anoxic events. This would be in contrast to a later paper that would question this due to taking account the locations of species in a phylogenic context. When looking at the placements of members within the family, Oksana Vernygora and coauthors would suggest that members of the group would move between north and south along with east and west throughout their evolutionary history with one of the main examples of this being the genus Rhynchodercetis. The 2025 paper by Valéria Gallo and colleagues would also look at the biogeography of the group where specific grouping were seen unlike in the previous paper. A BPA (Primary Brooks Parsimony Analysis) would be done to compare the phylogenic tree of the family to the geographic positions of the taxa. Below are the results of that analysis of the dispersal patterns of Decertidae within the publication. == Paleoecology ==

One of the few studied interactions documented for Dercetidae is in a 2015 paper by Bien´kowska-Wasiluk and coauthors which described the presence of a set of vertebrae found within the trace fossil Lepidenteron lewesiensis. This ichnotaxon is a small burrow which has been attributed to eunicid polychaetes along with anguillid eels. The authors of the paper suggested that the eunicid attributed was more likely in this case due to a lack of evidence of the bones being damaged by stomach acids, instead more likely being picked apart before being eaten. == References ==