FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. i 



two dorsal fins, a lack of teeth on the vomer and 

 palatine bones, and other similarities with his 

 fossil L. smiymovi, he placed it in genus Lotella. 

 The type specimen (from middle Miocene) is in 

 the form of a well-preserved double impression 

 about 90 mm long, but lacking the anterior part 

 of the head (Danil'chenko, 1960). Two other 

 specimens, from the Tarkhan Beds of the Kerch 

 Peninsula, were available to Danil'chenko 

 (1960), but his description fails to mention the 

 dentition. Positive assignment to family Mor- 

 idae will necessitate finding a skeletal imprint 

 with otoliths in situ or with a discernible morid 

 caudal complex. Even then it cannot be assigned 

 to Lotella unless the dentition that is character- 

 istic of this genus can be observed. 



ECLIPES SANTAMONICAE DAVID, 1943 



The type specimen of E. santamonicae (Da- 

 vid's No. 10223) , now in the collection of the Na- 

 tural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 

 is a badly fragmented, poorly preserved gadoid, 

 on which indelible brown ink has been used to 

 draw in missing parts and to highlight others. 

 Not only has the type slab been retouched, the 

 photograph of the altered type (Figure 4, Plate 

 5: David, 1943) has been further retouched. 



A careful comparison of the types of E. santa- 

 monicae and E. manni leads us to believe that 

 they are conspecific; thus, E. santamonicae is 

 relegated to the synonymy of E. manni. It is not 

 a morid. 



ONOBROSMIUS OLIGOCAENICUS 

 BOGACHEV, 1938 



Danil'chenko (1960) noted a marked similar- 

 ity between some species of Onobrosmiiis and the 

 fossil species referred to Lotella, and reported 

 that among the few but conspicuous differences 

 between Onobrosmius and Lotella are a slightly 

 bipartite dorsal fin, wider pectorals, and partic- 

 ularly a greater number of pelvic fin rays in 

 Lotella. Interestingly, he ascribed eight pelvic 

 fin rays for both L. smirnovi and L. andmssovi, 

 whereas he noted "V 7-8" for Onobrosmius oli- 

 gocaenicus. 



As with the description of 0. elongatus, no 

 character reported for O. oligocaenicus is diag- 

 nostic for family Moridae. 0. oligocaenicus oc- 

 curs in the Zuramakent Horizon, Upper Maikop, 

 and according to Danil'chenko (1960) the fauna 

 of this horizon cannot be compared with the fos- 

 sil fauna of any other region, so the problem of 

 its absolute geologic age remains obscure. Al- 

 though the Zuramakent Horizon has been var- 

 iously placed in Lower Miocene and Upper Oligo- 

 cene, we believe from available evidence that it 

 could be no older than Lower Miocene at most. 



LOTELLA SMIRNOVI DANIL'CHENKO, 1953 



In assigning this species to Lotella, Danil' 

 chenko overlooked the very characteristic denti- 

 tion of the genus: an outer row of widely spaced 

 large teeth and an inner band of small teeth. Ac- 

 cording to Daniel M. Cohen (personal communi- 

 cation) the dentition of L. smirnovi is readily 

 visible and is not as described above. Although 

 there is nothing in the type description that 

 would rule out assigning L. smirnovi to family 

 Moridae, Daniel M. Cohen (personal communi- 

 cation) said that "the tail appears to have been 

 regenerated, so I cannot be absolutely certain 

 that it is a gadoid." In light of these anomalies 

 it will be necessary to reevaluate L. smirnovi 

 using irrefutable familial and generic charac- 

 ters, if such can be found on the available im- 

 prints. 



L. smirnovi occurs in the same horizon as 

 Onobrosmius oligocaenicus, and, as noted above, 

 there is no substantial evidence that this horizon 

 is older than Lower Miocene. 



STRINSIA SOBIEVI DANIL'CHENKO, 1953 



In his original description, Danil'chenko 

 placed this fossil in family Moridae and stated 

 that the holotype, a double impression 40 mm 

 long, is similar to the Upper Miocene S. alata 

 Steindachner which is known only from frag- 

 ments of the head and forward part of the body. 

 Subsequently, with additional material at hand, 

 he designated S. sobievi as the type species for a 

 new genus, Protobrotula, and moved it into fam- 

 ily Brotulidae (Danil'chenko, 1960). Daniel 

 M. Cohen examined Danil'chenko's material of 

 this species and informed one of us (Fitch) that 



580 



