Himantolophus and Diodon: now related in the LRT

Short one today.
More housekeeping in the fish subsection of the large reptile tree (LRT, 2297 taxa) is driving taxa together that have not been nested together before. Today the football fish, Himantolophus, nests with the porcupine fish, Diodon (Fig 1) in the LRT.

Himantolophus is a traditional anglerfish. In the LRT it is now convergent with anglerfish, which are closer to scorpionfish and perch.

Seems obvious now,
especially noting that Himantolophus also lacks pelvic fins and has dermal spines all over its body. This hypothesis of interrelationships could change tomorrow. And that’s OK.

Himantolophus groenlandicus
(Reinhardt JCH 183; 60cm in length) is a deep sea ‘angler’. Strongly resembling the frogfish Antennarius, Himantolophus lacks any trace of a pelvis or pelvic fin. In the LRT it is more closely related to Diodon the porcupine fish (Fig 1). The skin is covered with large bony plates, each with a medial spine. The teeth are depressible. This single genus has 18 species.

BTW,
the LRT has not been updated for the past week and cannot be updated for awhile considering the current wave of changes, like this one (Fig 1), coming into the fish subset of the LRT.

Thank you for your readership,
yes, even you certain readers, who hate DGS, the LRT and every time I post here. I realize this is frustrating for you.

Solution: Build your own LRT. Then you’ll have evidence to counter hypotheses made here and elsewhere. Become a player. It’s more fun than sitting in the stands.

Long time readers have been following
this 12-year phylogenetic experiment in real time, including mistakes, discoveries, corrections and new hypotheses of interrelationships. There has been only one reason to build the LRT: it has never been done before, not with this wide gamut of 2297 taxa (Chordates). This analysis needed to be done because taxon exclusion is the number one problem in vertebrate paleontology.

There is no need to cite hypotheses presented here.
Just add pertinent taxa to your own more focused studies.

References
Reinhardt JCH 1837. Ichthyologiske bidrag til den Grönlandske fauna. Kgl. Danske Vidensk. Selsk. Natur. Math. Afhandl., 7: 83-196, pls. 1-8.