halfbeak 
noun
A slender shoaling fish of coastal areas, with small pectoral fins and the lower jaw lengthened into a beak. It is related to the flying fishes and often skitters along the surface. Also called garfish in Australia and New Zealand.
- Several genera and species in the family Exocoetidae, including the widely distributed Euleptorhamphus viridis.
- The plates are absent in halfbeaks and flyingfishes, thus the present topology requires their independent loss in the three halfbeak/flyingfish lineages, or their reappearance in the needlefish/saury lineage.
- The phylogenetic position of needlefishes relative to halfbeaks fits his prediction.