Fishes of the JVestern North Atlantic 231 



as long as spiracle; distance between orbits about 0.6—0.7 ^^ great as length of orbits. 

 Distance between first gill openings 2.3 times as great as distance between exposed 

 nostrils; between fifth openings 1.2— 1.3 times; first gill openings i.o*-— 1.6 times as 

 long as fifth and 0.2-0.3 as long as breadth of mouth. Nasal curtain fringed; expanded 

 posterior (outer) margins of nostrils fringed. Upper and lower jaws rather strongly 

 arched centrally. 



Teeth ^gZl^, close-set; those in nearly mature males mostly in straight series (not 

 in quincunx), with small base, circular or oval, those in median sector of mouth with 

 slender sharp cusp pointing toward symphysis or inward toward throat, those in outer 

 sector with triangular cusp pointing toward corner of mouth, the one series of teeth at 

 symphysis in upper jaw pointing straight downward; those in female in quincunx, 

 ovate, with low triangular cusp not pointing inward or outward; no symphysis tooth. 



First and second dorsals similar in size and shape. Interspace between dorsals 0.22 — 

 0.38 as long as base of first dorsal. Caudal membrane from rear end of base of second 

 dorsal about half as long as base of first dorsal. Pelvics deeply concave, strongly scalloped 

 along anterior side of excavation but only weakly so rearward; anterior margin 0.52 — 

 0.55 as long as distance from its own origin to rear tip of pelvic; anterior lobe slender, 

 including four radial cartilages besides the first stout one; posterior lobe moderately 

 convex along its forward half, thence nearly straight to its narrowly rounded tip, ex- 

 tending a little more than 1/5 of the distance from axil of pelvics toward first dorsal; 

 inner margin straight. Claspers on 402-mm male reaching beyond tips of pelvics by 

 a distance about equal to diameter of orbit. 



Rostral cartilage firm and extending nearly to tip of snout. Anterior pectoral rays 

 reaching about '/lo of the distance from front of orbits toward tip of snout. 



Color. Upper surface sprinkled everywhere with small light to dark brownish and 

 whitish spots, including the tail, pelvics and claspers; many groups of about 30—50 

 dark spots scattered everywhere, the most prominent marking being the group of spots 

 at axil of pectoral ; some of spots on tail grouped in form of about five or six prom- 

 inent bars; light and dark spots also present on anterior part of each dorsal fin and on 

 caudal. Whitish below; a group of grayish blotches, mostly fused, on each pectoral, 

 and an elongate blotch of the ground color of upper surface along inner part of 

 claspers, anteriorly, on nearly mature males. Younger specimens of both sexes with- 

 out these blotches. 



Si-ze. On a 232-mm male the claspers extend a little beyond the tips of the 

 pelvics, while on a 285-mm specimen of R. garmani they fail to reach the tips of the 

 pelvics by a distance as great as the diameter of the orbit. This suggests that lentiginosa 

 matures at a length a little below 400 mm (see garmani., p. 204). 



Occurrence. This newly discovered species is apparently widespread in the Gulf 

 of Mexico, for it has been trawled in depths of 29, 85, 104, 112, 165, 205 and 305 

 fathoms and in bottom temperatures ranging from 48.5° F (305 fath.) to 73.4° F 



62. It is exceptional to find a Raja with the fifth pair of gill openings as long as the first pair, but such was the case 

 on the female 302 mm long. 



