Summary
Hagfish occur in all oceans except the Polar Seas. They are absent from warm oceans or occur only in deep and cool parts.
Extant hagfish in the family Myxinidae are monophyletic. Systematically useful characters within Myxinidae are number and pattern of gill pouches, gill apertures, slime pores and dental cusps. Close to sixty valid species of hagfish in five genera are listed. The genus Paramyxine is problematical and its distinction from Eptatretus cannot be upheld. In anticipation of revisionary work Paramyxine is tentatively synonymized with Eptatretus. It makes up the subfamily Eptatretinae with 35 species, having more than one pair of gill openings. Myxine with 19 species, Notomyxine, 1 species, Neomyxine, 1 species and Nemamyxine, 2 species have only one pair of gill openings and constitute the subfamily Myxininae.
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Fernholm, B. (1998). Hagfish Systematics. In: The Biology of Hagfishes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5834-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5834-3_3
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