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The species name, Xiphias gladius, derives from Greek ξιφίας (xiphias, "swordfish"), itself from ξίφος (xiphos, "sword") and from Latin gladius ("sword"). [6] This makes it superficially similar to other billfish such as marlin , but upon examination, their physiology is quite different and they are members of different families.
Billfish have a long, bony, spear-shaped bill, sometimes called a snout, beak or rostrum. The swordfish has the longest bill, about one-third its body length. Like a true sword, it is smooth, flat, pointed and sharp. The bills of other billfish are shorter and rounder, more like spears. [40] Billfish normally use their bills to slash at ...
These are the only two fish that have a long blade-like snout. [35] Although they are similar in appearances, saw sharks are distinct from sawfish. Sawfish are not sharks, but a type of ray. The gill slits of the sawfishes are positioned on the underside like a ray, but the gill slits of the saw shark are positioned on the side like a shark.
The Atlantic sailfish is a metallic blue fish with a large sail-like dorsal fin and a long and pointed bill-like snout. It is dark bluish-black on the upperparts and lighter on the sides (counter-shading), with about twenty bluish horizontal bars along the flanks; the underparts are silvery white. The tail fin is strongly forked.
Marlins have elongated bodies, a spear-like snout or bill, and a long, rigid dorsal fin which extends forward to form a crest. Marlins are among the fastest marine swimmers. However, greatly exaggerated speeds are often claimed in popular literature, based on unreliable or outdated reports.
Like the sticklebacks, it feeds on small invertebrates and fish larvae. [6] Also, like sticklebacks, it produces a sticky secretion from its kidneys when breeding. Whereas sticklebacks use this secretion to bind plant matter together to create a nest, the tube-snout simply attaches its eggs to a substrate. Aulorhynchus attaches its eggs to kelp ...
Aulorhynchidae is derived from its type genus, Aulorhynchus, the name of which is a combination of aulos, meaning "flute", and rhynchus, which means "snout", a reference to the flexible tubular snout of the tube-snout. [7]
Its body is generally shark-like, but its most obvious feature is the flattened head, which is extended forward in a blade-like bony snout with, in Australian waters, 18 to 22 pairs of sideways-facing teeth. However, elsewhere there may be as many as 25. [6] These teeth are short, flat, and roughly triangular in shape.