FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



525 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Although the 

 orange filefish has been described as "rather 

 common" at Woods Hole during the summer, 3 

 only 3 specimens have been reported within the 

 limits of the Gulf of Maine: 1 from Portland, 

 Maine, and 2 from Salem, Mass., all of them 

 many years ago. 4 Evidently it reaches the Gulf 

 of Maine only at long intervals, as a waif from the 

 south. 



Unicornfish Alutera scripta (Gmelin) 1789 



Jordan and Evermann, 1890-1900, p. 1719. 5 



Description. — This species much resembles the 

 orange filefish from which it differs chiefly in its 

 somewhat more slender body (2 to 3 times as long 

 as deep), longer dorsal fin (44 to 49 rays), longer 

 anal fin (47 to 52 rays), shorter caudal fin (in 

 small unicornfish the caudal is less than half as 

 long as the body, while in young orange filefish 



it is more than half as long), and in color. The 

 dorsal spine may be serrated in young fish, but it 

 is smooth in adidts. 



Color. — The unicornfish is olive on head and 

 body with light blue reticulations extending from 

 the snout to the tail; in grown fish there are 

 numerous small round black spots on the sides of 

 the body. 



Size. — Reaches a length of 3 feet. 



General range. — Tropical seas; northward to 

 South Carolina on the Atlantic Coast of America, 

 and to Georges Bank as a stray. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Two speci- 

 mens of this fish, 5 inches and 5% inches long, 

 caught on the western edge of Georges Bank Sept. 

 15, 1930, by the schooner Old Glory, 6 are the only 

 ones that have been reported from the Gulf of 

 Maine. A third, 5 inches long, was taken by 

 Atlantis, south of Sable Island (lat. 40°55' N., 

 long. 59°55' W.), August 18, 1941. 



Figure 279. — Unicorn fish (Alutera scripta), Georges Bank specimen, 143 mm. long. Drawing by H. B. Bigelow. 



THE PUFFERS AND PORCUPINE FISHES 

 FAMILIES TETRAODONTIDAE AND DIODONTIDAE 



The members of these two families are so closely 

 allied one to the other, not only anatomically but 

 in general appearance, that they may be described 

 as a unit. They have only one dorsal fin (the soft- 

 rayed), the spiny dorsal being obsolete, and they 

 have no ventral fins. Their gill openings are 

 reduced to short slits like those of their allies, the 



» Sumner, Osbum, and Cole, Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 31, Pt. 2, 1913 

 p. 762. 



* There Is no way to verify the identifications at this late date. 



• Jordan and Evermann's (Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus., Pt. 4, pi. 260, fig. 637) 

 illustration labeled "Scripta" seems to have been based on a specimen of 

 schoepfi, in an intermediate stage of development. 



triggerfishes and filefishes (pp. 520 and 521); their 

 teeth are fused into cutting plates; and they have 

 no scales. The two families are separable by the 

 structure of the teeth, as described below in the 

 accounts of the two species concerned, and by 

 certain anatomical characters. 



All of them are capable of inflating their bellies 

 to balloonlike proportions with air or with water, 

 if annoyed, and of deflating at will. And it is a 

 matter of general interest (though not touching 



• Reported by MacCoy, Bull. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., No. 58, 1931 p. 18. 



