Family Albulidae" 



SAMUEL F. HILDEBRAND12 



Characters. Body slender, little compressed; belly rounded; ordinary scales on 

 median line. Head rather low; flat above. Snout conical, projecting far in advance of 

 mandible. Eye of moderate size, with much adipose tissue in adults. Mouth mod- 

 erately small, nearly horizontal. Maxillary generally reaching nearly to front of eye, 

 or to some point underneath it, but never beyond eye. Premaxillaries not protractile. 

 GuLAR plate lacking. Teeth small, present in bands on jaws, vomer, palatines, ptery- 

 goids, basibranchials, and sphenoid. Branchiostegals 13 or 14. Gill membranes 

 separate, free from isthmus; a membrane across isthmus in front. Opercular bones 

 with membranous borders. Pseudobranchiae well developed. Gill rakers very short, 

 stout, tubercular in large examples. Last several segments of Spinal column directed 

 upward toward base of upper lobe of caudal. Lateral line present, straight. Scales 

 of moderate size, more or less quadrate, with membranous border, 3 (rarely 4) 

 nearly parallel basal radii, and 4 or 5 coarse basal lobes (fully described by Cockerell, 

 75: 3; Jd: 865; ly. 122); scales extending onto the fins; a modified median row of 

 enlarged scales in front of dorsal fin; no scales on head. Dorsal fin beginning in ad- 

 vance of pelvics. Caudal forked. Anal very small, placed far behind dorsal. Pectorals 

 and Pelvics similar, each with an Axillary scale. 



The young pass through a leptocephalus stage like the Elopidae and the eels.^* 



Remarks. The members of this family differ from those of Elopidae principally 



in the absence of a gular plate, and in having a conical snout as well as fewer bran- 



11. Edited and emended by George S.Myers, Henry B. Bigelow, and Yngve H. Olsen. 



12. August 15, 1883-March 16, 1949. 



13. The heart of Albula is reminiscent of the ganoids in having a rudimentary conus arteriosus with two rows of 

 valves (9: 548). Several fossil albulids are known, from as far back as the Eocene (5.^: 84). — G.S.M. 



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