batrachoid

English

Alternative forms

• Batrachoid (especially in the sense "of or pertaining to the family Batrachoididae")

Etymology

Batrachoides +‎ -oid (with haplology). Compare batrachian.

Adjective

batrachoid (comparative more batrachoid, superlative most batrachoid)

1. (zoology, dated) Frog-like; batrachian.
   • 1832, Marshall Hall, Art. II: A Critical and Experimental Essay on the Circulation of Blood: The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, page 167:

     It applies, indeed, solely in its present state to the capillaries of the saurial and batrachoid reptiles; but there is every reason to believe, that the same arrangement takes place in the mammated class of animals.

   • 1841, David Craigie, Art. XII: Instance of Obliteration of the Aorta beyond the Arch: The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, page 461:

     An idea, not undeserving attention, has been announced on this subject by M. Reynaud, who, observing that a similar anatomical arrangement is found in the batrachoid amphibia, or frog family during the whole period of existence, infers, though not very confidently, that it may be applied to explain the arrangement of the vascular system now under consideration, by referring it to the earliest periods of intra-uterine life in the Mammalia.

   • 1853, The Literary Gazette, London, page 114:

     It gave, therefore, additional evidence of the existence of air-breathing vertebrata at the period of the deposition of the coal-strata, and extended the known geographical range of the batrachoid reptiles of the carboniferous epoch.

2. (zoology) Of or pertaining to the family Batrachoididae of marine fishes, called toadfish.
   • 1923, Edwin Chapin Starks, The Osteology and Relationships of the Uranoscopoid Fishes, Stanford University Press, page 267:

     There is no doubt but that the Batrachoid fishes deserve at least the rank given them by Dr. Gill, coördinate with the Trachinoidea, the Gobiodea, or the Blennioidea (as arranged by Gill , for I do not accept Mr. Regan's inclusion of the Ophidioidea and Zoarceoidea in that group).

Related terms

• batrachoidid

Noun

batrachoid (plural batrachoids)

1. (zoology) Any species of the family Batrachoididae; a batrachoidid.
   • 1970, Bruce W. Halstead, Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals of the World, Volume 3: Vertebrates, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 435:

     Regardless of the type of water in which they are found, batrachoids are primarily bottom fishes.

   • 1991, Barrie G. M. Jamieson, L. K.-P. Leung, Fish Evolution and Systematics, Cambridge University Press, page 163:

     Somatically batrachoids are in fact highly modified if basal euteleosts.

   • 1981, Lawrence M. Dill, Robert L. Dunbrack, Peter F. Major, “A new stereophotographic technique for analyzing the three-dimensional structure of fish schools”, in David L. G. Noakes, Jack A. Ward, editors, Ecology and ethology of fishes: Proceedings of the 2nd biennial symposium on the ethology and behavioral ecology of fishes, Springer, page 73:

     The batrachoids (toadfishes) are sedentary large species on mud or sand bottoms (Gill 1907, Gudger 1910) in which the male guards the large eggs (ca. 5 mm diameter in Opsanus tau).