98 PAPERS FROM TORTUGAS LABORATORY vol. xxxiv 



Alphestes afer (Bloch) 



Epinephelus afer Bloch, Naturgesch. ausland. Fische, vol. 7, 1793, p. 12, pi. 327 — Acara, 



Guinea. 

 Plectropoma chloropterum Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. nat. poiss., vol. 2, 1828, p. 398 — 



Santo Domingo; Martinique. 

 Epinephelus lightjooti Fowler, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 59, 1907, p. 258, 



fig. 3 — Santo Domingo. 



Two only were seen in the field, under a small coral head. Four more were 

 taken with dynamite, when similarly hidden. 



The ground color is yellow-olive, thickly covered with brassy spots, smallest 

 over the snout and interorbital region, and becoming larger posteriorly and 

 ventrally. When the fish is at rest three lines of brown radiate downward or 

 backward from the eye, the upper one reaching a vertical one beneath the first 

 spines of the dorsal; two rectangular blocks, darker than ground color, on 

 occiput and nape; five interrupted or blotched bands of still darker color on the 

 body. Of these dark markings, all but the ocular system disappear when the 

 fish swims. 



The color at night is very different from that shown by day. Two dark bands 

 then cross the body, being more definite, and less a mere series of blotches, than 

 by day; the first under first 5 dorsal spines, the second under junction of dorsal 

 fins; interspace between the two bands and the region behind the second much 

 lighter in color than by day, and almost free from traces of the bands which are 

 then shown. 



Between the type of Alphestes lightjooti (Fowler) and a Puerto Rican speci- 

 men of A. afer of the same size (U. S. Nat. Mus. no. 50202), no more than 

 Fowler have I succeeded in finding significant structural difference. Even the 

 color markings the first retains after several years in alcohol differ relatively little 

 from those of the specimen more recently collected, and in forms so changeable 

 in appearance their peculiarity conveys to me no trustworthy suggestion of 

 specific difference. 



Atlantic coast of tropical America to Florida, W. H. L. 



Mycteroperca Gill 



Mycteroperca Gill, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 15, 1863, p. 80 (Serranus olfax 



Jenyns). 

 Trisotropis Gill, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 17, 1865, p. 104 Qohnius guttatus 



Bloch and Schneider = Perca vcnenosa Linnaeus). 



Jordan, Evermann, and Clark (Check list, 1930, p. 313) segregated Trisotropis 

 anew from Mycteroperca, with generic rank. This seems premature in the light 

 of the fact that one species, listed as M. venenosa in subsequent pages, is listed in 

 the Chec\ list as T . venenosus, and a synonym as M. howersi. Again, M. inter- 

 stitialis is listed twice under Trisotropis and three times under Mycteroperca, as 

 follows: T. inter stitialis, T . dimidiatus, M. falcata, M. calliura, and M. phenax. 



W. H. L. 



