Ptarmus is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, velvetfishes belonging to the family Aploactinidae.

This genus is endemic to the waters of the western Indian Ocean.

Ptarmus was first described as a genus in 1947 by the South African ichthyologist James Leonard Brierley Smith as a monotypic genus for Coccotropus jubatus, which he had described in 1935 from the coast of modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

[2] This genus is classified within the family Aploactinidae in the suborder Scorpaenoidei within the order Scorpaeniformes,[3] although this family is also treated as a subfamily of the stonefish family Synanceiidae[4][5] within the Scorpaenoidei, which in turn is treated as a superfamily within the order Perciformes.

[6] The name of the genus, Ptarmus means "sneeze", an allusion not explained by Smith.