Drawing by Angel see text Bovichtidae, the temperate icefishes or thornfishes, is a family of marine ray-finned fishes, classified in the suborder Notothenioidei of the order Perciformes.

Bovichtidae was first formally described as a family in 1861 by the American ichthyologist Theodore Nicholas Gill.

[2] Phylogenetic analysis of morphological characters has revealed that the family Bovichtidae may not be a monophyletic group.

[3][4] Bovichtidae is one of two families of the suborder Notothenioidei with a primarily non-Antarctic distribution, the other being Pseudaphritidae.

[5] The name of the family is taken from its type genus, Bovichtus which is derived from bovus meaning "bull" and ichthys which means fish, based on the local name for Bovichtus species in Valparaiso, Chile, torrito, the "little bull".