206 



Colour : body and fins blue-black ; pectorals with narrow whitish edge and 

 tip : margin of gill-opening and of all the mucous pores of the head and lateral 

 line brilliant white. 



A mature female is between 25 and 26 inches long. 



Arabian Sea, between the Laccadives and the Malabar coast, 360, 406 and 

 719 fathoms. 



Regd. Nos. 13704, ^, 5*1. 



This species appears to differ from X. atrarius, dredged by the TJ. S. Fish 

 Commission in 401 fathoms off the coast of Ecuador, only in the greater relative 

 length of the tail, the nearer approximation of the gill-openings, and the greater 

 length of the pectoral fins. 



Saurnchelys, Peters. 



166. Sauretichelys taeniola. 



Gavialiceps tseniola, Wood-Mason MS., Alcock, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Dec. 1889, p. 460. 

 Nettastoma tseniola, Alcock, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ang. 1891, p. 135, and Oct. 1892, p. 364. 



Length of the head, measured to the gill-opening, about five-eighths of the 

 distance from the gill-opening to the vent, and about a seventh of the total. 



Length of the snout five times that of the eye, and contained about 2^ 

 times in that of the head. The nostrils are difficult to distinguish from the large 

 elliptical symmetrically disposed mucous pores of the snout. 



The mouth-cleft extends to, or beyond, the after limit of the eye, and the 

 upper jaw projects well beyond the lower. 



Broadish bands of small sharp teeth in both jaws, the band in the upper 

 jaw subdivided by a median longitudinal toothless space. A patch of somewhat 

 enlarged teeth on the premaxillary, separated from the maxillary teeth by a 

 notch into which a patch of similarly enlarged teeth on the mandibular symphysis 

 fits. Three long rows of teeth on the vomer, the outer rows very small and 

 sometimes absent, the middle row very large. Tongue short, the edge of the tip 

 just free. 



Gill-openings of moderate size, close together. 



No scales : the lateral line is very distinct and consists of a row of large 

 pores which is continued right across the gill-cover to the occiput. 



Vertical fins confluent ; the dorsal begins above the gill-opening. 



No pectoral fins. 



No air-bladder. 



Colour : black in adult life, the young silvery. 



Adult females are about 24 inches long. 



