Proceedings of 

 the United States 

 National Museum 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Volume 124 1968 Number 3643 



Systematics and Distribution of the Monotypic 

 Indo-Pacific Blenniid Fish Genus Atrosalarias 



By Victor G. Springer and William F. Smith-Vaniz 

 Division of Fishes 



Our attention was first called to the possibility that a systematic 

 problem might exist within the monotypic blenniid genus Atrosalarias 

 because Chapman (1951) had reported that the dorsal fin had 10 

 spines and Smith (1959) had reported that it had 11 spines. Our 

 purposes here are to redefine Atrosalarias and to discuss the meristic 

 variation and geographic distribution of the genus. We have attempted 

 to examine all extant material and to give a complete synonymy at 

 least through 1964 (three references, each marked with an asterisk, 

 were not seen). The synonymy is not given separately for each of the 

 two subspecies that we recognize under A. juscus because several 

 authors refer to material that comprise both subspecies or because it 

 was impossible to determine which of the two subspecies the authors 

 were considering. Of the five nominal species referable to Atrosalarias, 

 four are A. juscus juscus. Salarias holomelas is considered a subspecies, 

 A. juscus holomelas. 



We wish to thank the following institutions and personnel for making 

 available to us the facilities of their collections (abbreviations are 

 those used in the material list) : Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia (ANSP), J. E. Bohlke; Australian Museum, Sydney 



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