Artedidraconidae is a family of marine perciform fishes comprising four genera. Artedidraconidae are endemic to deep waters off Antarctica. The operculum

Operculum (fish)

The operculum of a bony fish is the hard bony flap covering and protecting the gills. In most fish, the rear edge of the operculum roughly marks the division between the head and the body....

 carries a hook-shaped spine and there are four or five hypurals. Artedidraconidae have 33 to 41 vertebrae. The name "Artedidraconidae" is derived from a combination of Artedi (from Peter Artedi

Peter Artedi

Peter Artedi or Petrus Arctaedius was a Swedish naturalist and is known as the "father of Ichthyology."...

, the "father of ichthyology") and the Greek drakōn (δράκων, dragon). A mental barbel

Barbel (anatomy)

A barbel on a fish is a slender, whiskerlike tactile organ near the mouth. Fish that have barbels include the catfish, the carp, the goatfish, sturgeon, the zebrafish and some species of shark...

 is a characteristic of this family; the morphology of this barbel is variable with the species. Species of Artedidraconidae are said to have speciated sympatrically

Sympatric speciation

Sympatric speciation is the process through which new species evolve from a single ancestral species while inhabiting the same geographic region. In evolutionary biology and biogeography, sympatric and sympatry are terms referring to organisms whose ranges overlap or are even identical, so that...

.