Fishes of the Western North Atlantic i6i 



dermal ridges; snout short, thick, fleshy, the jaws not greatly protrusible; 3rd to 5th 

 gill openings over origins of pectorals; gill arches without rakers and not interconnected 

 by a sieve of modified denticles; nostrils entirely separate from mouth, without barbels; 

 spiracles present; eyes without nictitating folds or membranes; each jaw with a labial fur- 

 row (or furrows) near corner; teeth small, blade-like, with i cusp; head and skull normal 

 in shape (not widely expanded); rostral cartilages 3, united at tip; radials of pectoral 

 nearly all borne on mesopterygium and on metapterygium. Development ovoviviparous; 

 the egg case, in early development, soft, thin, oval.'^ 

 Genera. Only one genus, Alo-pias. 



Genus ^/o/)Wj Rafinesque, 1810 

 Thresher Sharks 



Alofias Rafinesque, Carratt. Gen. Nuov. Sicil., 1 8 10: 12; type species, A. macrourus Rafinesque, 18 10, Sicily, 

 equals Squalus vulfinus Bonnaterre, Tabl. Encyc. Meth. Ichthyol., 1788: g, pi. 85, fig. 349. 



Generic Synonyms: 



Squalus (in part) Bonnaterre, Tabl. Encyc. Meth. Ichthyol., 1788: 9; also subsequent authors; not Squalus 



Linnaeus, 1758. 

 Ga/^tt/ (in part) Rafinesque, Indice Ittiol. Sicil., 1810:46. 

 Carcharhinus (in part) Blainville, Bull. Soc. philom. Paris, 1816: 121.' 

 Carcfutrias (in part) Cuvier, Regne Anim., 2, 1817: 126; and subsequent authors; not Carcharias Rafinesque, 



1810. 

 Alopecias Muller and Henle, Arch. Naturg., (3) i, 1837: 397; type, Carcharias vulfes Cuvier, 1817, equals 



Squalus vulfinus Bonnaterre, 1788. 

 Vulfecula Garman, Mem. Harv. Mus. comp. ZooL, 36, 1913: 30; type species, Vulfecula marina Valmont, 



Diet. Hist. Nat., 3, 1768: 740.* 

 Alofes Vladykov and McKenzie, Proc. N. S. Inst. Sci., ig, 1935: 46, for A. vulfes (wrongly referred by them 



to Bonnaterre, 1788, instead of to Gmelin, 1789); evident misspelling for Alopias. 



Generic Characters. Those of the family. 



Range. Cosmopolitan in low and mid latitudes of all oceans, including the Mediter- 

 ranean. 



Fossil Teeth. Eocene, Africa; Oligocene to Miocene, Europe. 



Species. The species of this genus fall in two sharply defined groups. In one the rear 

 tip of the first dorsal terminates far in front of the origin of the pelvics; in the other the 

 first dorsal overlaps the pelvics. 



The first group includes: pelagicus Nakamura, which is set apart by its notched and 

 denticulate teeth; the well known vulfinus of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific; also two 



2. Photograph of eggs from female taken off Florida, contributed by Stewart Springer. 



3. See footnote la, p. 320. 



4.. By ruling of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (Smithson. misc. Coll., j} [3], 1925: 

 27) Carman's revival of the name Vulpecula Valmont is not acceptable, because such of the latter's names as were 

 binomial were only accidentally so. 



