270 PROCEEiDINGS OF THE XATIONAL MUSSBUM vou 04 



4b. Maxillary barbel fringed with minute barbels; mental barbels with barblets; 

 nuchal shields with a foramen; back without scutes; origin of pelvics 

 nearer caudal fin than to snout; adipose not continued forward as a ridge; 

 scutes well developed, keel and point of humeral process below line of 

 hooks of lateral series; a black s])ot on base of dorsal and a narrow 

 oblique black spot on base of each caudal lobe; color marking diffuse; 

 pale along lateral scutes, which number 33 to 3.5; dorsal I, 5; anal 

 12 Opsodoras leporhinus (Eigenmann) 



DORAOPS, new genus 



Description. — Head depressed, its lengtli a little greater than 

 its width at base of pectoral spines, or the width of coracoids 1)^ in 

 lengtli of head; eye in front of middle of length of head and from 3 

 to 4 times in the snout; width of mouth contained about 2}i times 

 in head; gill opcning-s restricted, extending a little below base of 

 pectorals and their length a little greater than length of snout; 

 mouth sub terminal, the upper lip in front of lov/er jaw; a wide me- 

 dian dorsal groove in front of middle of head with a fontanel pos- 

 teriorly between rear of orbits; a wide band of villiform teeth on 

 premaxillaries and at front of dentaries, the length of these bands 

 about equal to the length of the snout; barbels all sunple, not fringed, 

 a pair of maxillary and two pairs of mental barbels; two pairs of 

 nostrils, without barbels, the anterior pair tubular and the posterior 

 pair with elevated rims ; lateral scutes posteriorly begiiming over region 

 of anus and ending at base of caudal fin rays, numbering 19 to 25; 

 each scute provided with a spine posteriorly directed; no scutes on 

 dorsal or ventral sides of caudal peduncle; three or four partly em- 

 bedded bony scutes, without spines, at front of the lateral line, the 

 first two of which are each connected with the epiotic by a bony 

 stay; pectoral spines serrated in front and behind; dorsal spine 

 serrated in front and in small specimens behind, rough only in adults 

 300 mm. in standard length and becoming obsolete with age; adipose 

 fin base longer than base of anal but not continued forward to form 

 a keel; intestines much convoluted; peritonemn white; skin leathery; 

 caudal fin forked; air bladder very large, with an anterior compart- 

 ment separated from the posterior section by a constriction, the 

 posterior section having long fingerlikc projections, with numerous 

 constrictions across them, that extend to under the end of the body 

 cavity posteriorly. 



Remarks. — This new genus difTers from other genera of the family 

 Doradidae in having spiny scutes only posteriorly in the lateral 

 series, for in all otlier genera referred to the family as revised by 

 Eigenmann (Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc, vol. 22, pp. 304-306, 1925) 

 the lateral series of spiny scutes is contmuous. 



Myers (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 68, No. 3, p. 124, 1927) 

 described the new genus Orinocodoras as having laminate plates 



