294 PROCEEiI>INGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.94 



prickly; the first rays of all the jBns, except anal, are enlarged and bony, 

 with strong prickles, and those on the pectoral spine recurved spinules; 

 the soft rays of pelvics and pectorals also with prickles; the anterior 

 thu'd of the snout not bony and without prickles, this fleshy area 

 is more or less composed of very small plicate folds; both lips papillate; 

 the small barbel at the outer corners of the lips is rather short, and is 

 contained about 3 to 3}^ times in the fleshy interorbital space; 

 two pairs of nasal openings close together near middorsal line, a little 

 in front of the eyes, the posterior opening of each pair covered by a 

 dermal flap ; a rather wide area along base of dorsal and adipose fins 

 naked; belly naked to anal fin; intestine elongate, much coiled. 



Color. — Grayish to brownish above, paler below, the blackish 

 peritoneum conspicuous through the skin; five pale areas dorsally 

 separated by dark saddles, the first at front of dorsal, second at rear 

 base of dorsal, third in front of adipose fin, last behind that fin; 

 these dark-colored saddles join along midsides to form a more or less 

 obvious wide lateral band. Top of head finely mottled or speckled 

 with pale; dorsal fin barred, the black and pale areas on the rays, the 

 membranes pale or plain grayish; caudal fin with three distinct bars 

 on upper and middle rays with an additional bar on the lower lobe 

 near the ends of the rays, seldom are there two or four bars on the upper 

 lobe of the caudal fin; pelvics sometimes with two dark bars and pec- 

 torals plain or with about three or four bars ; anal with its base usually 

 blackish; dorsal fin with a conspicuous black spot on the membrane 

 between the bases of the spine and first soft ray ; belly yellowish when 

 alive and also the tip of the upper lobe of caudal fin yellowish. 



Named sodchthys in honor of and in appreciation of the help ex- 

 tended to me by the Standard Oil Co. of VenezAiela while I was a guest 

 at the camps of the Lago Petroleum Corporation. 



Remarks. — This new subspecies differs from Chaetostoma anomala 

 anomala Regan of the Rio Chama system, Maracaibo Basin, in having 

 a larger eye, in reference to width of interorbital space, and in color. 

 The eye is contained 2.3 to 3.0 (average about 2.7) in the interorbital 

 space in sovichthys of the Rio Motatan system, and in anomala 2.7 

 to 3.3 (average about 3.0) on specimens of comparable sizes, 25 to 

 75 mm. in standard length. The dark bars on the upper lobe and 

 middle rays of the caudal fin in sovichthys are wider and number three, 

 only occasionally two or four, while in C. a. anomala they are narrower 

 and almost always number four, only rarely three or five; thus the 

 caudal fin of the Rio Chama form is barred the same as the dorsal, 

 while sovichthys of the Motatan system has more distinct but fewer 

 dark bars across its caudal. There are in addition some statistical 

 differences in bodily proportions when the same sizes of specimens are 

 compared. 



