| Belone Temporal range:
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Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Beloniformes |
| Family: | Belonidae |
| Genus: | Belone G. Cuvier, 1816 |
| Type species | |
| Esox belone Linnaeus 17611
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Belone is a genus of needlefish common in brackish and marine waters mainly found in the eastern Atlantic ocean to Mediterranean and Black Sea, as well. It is one of ten genera in the family Belonidae.
Species
Three recognised species are in this genus:2
- Belone belone (Linnaeus, 1761) (garfish)
- Belone euxini Günther, 1866
- Belone svetovidovi Collette & Parin, 1970 (short-beaked garfish)
The fossil species †Belone countermani de Sant'Anna, Collette & Godfrey, 2013 is known from the mid-late Miocene-aged St. Marys Formation of Maryland, US.3
Etymology
Georges Cuvier erected the genus by using the specific name of Linnaeus's Esox belone in tautonymy, the word belone is Greek for a needlefish and is thought to have originally referred to the greater pipefish.4
References
References
- Fricke, Ron; Eschmeyer, William N. & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Belone". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Species in genus Belone". FishBase. April 2019 version.
- Carnevale, Giorgio; Godfrey, Stephen James (2018). "Miocene bony fishes from the Calvert, Choptank, St. Marys and Eastover Formations, Chesapeake Group, Maryland and Virginia". Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology (100).
- Christopher Scharpf; Kenneth J. Lazara (15 June 2019). "Order BELONIFORMES (Needlefishes)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 28 July 2019.