no. 3647 PERCIFORM FISHES — GOSLENTE 35 



The pleurosphenoids do not meet on the midline. 



A basisphenoid is present. 



The auditory bulla is swollen somewhat, with a peculiar, lateral, 

 puffed-out area in the exoccipital. There are no soft areas on the 

 bullae walls. 



The round facets for vertebral articulation on the exoccipitals seem 

 to be separate from each other and from the round area on the 

 basioccipital. 



Paired fins and girdles. — There are four actinosts. In the wet 

 specimen, the bottom one articulates with the cartilage over and 

 between the scapula and the coracoid. The very long pectoral fin has 

 18 rays, the uppermost of which inserts below the level of the main 

 (lowermost) opercular projecting point. 



The upper, laminar postcleithrum is attached entirely to the clei- 

 thrum above. To its anterior edge is attached the lower, long sword- 

 like postcleithrum, Avhich runs down in back of, and has a ligament 

 extending to, the pelvis. 



The pelvis extends between and is attached tightly to the cleithra 

 in normal percoid fashion. The pelvic bones are long and somewhat 

 separate on the midline. They have relatively long posterior processes. 



The pelvic fin has a well-developed spine and five soft rays. 



Axial skeleton. — Vertebrae 13 + 17. The first vertebra with a well- 

 developed hemal spine is the fourteenth. Vertebrae five through 13 

 have parapophyses, the anterior more or less laterally directed, chang- 

 ing to vertically posteriorly. Pleural ribs articulate with notches in 

 and behind the tips of the parapophyses. 



In the caudal skeleton (fig. 5d), the urostyle extends back between 

 the fourth and fifth hypurals (counting as in Nybelin's 1963 system), 

 leaving the uppermost hypural alongside the two autogenous uro- 

 neurals. (The possibility that Scornbrolabrax has only four hypurals 

 and three uroneurals was investigated and dismissed because the 

 lowermost of the three bones immediately above the urostyle [fig. 5: 

 ?Hy5] ends posteriorly in a cartilaginous plate that forms a continuous 

 edge with that of the hypurals below, whereas the upper two bones of 

 the series, i.e., the uroneurals, do not.) There are three separate epurals 

 and three autogenous hemal arches. The caudal rays only slightly 

 overlap the hypurals (about as shown by Matsubara and Iwai, 1958, 

 fig. 9). 



The first dorsal pterygiophore interdigitates between neural arches 

 two and three. There are no predorsal bones. 



In the anal fin there are three close-set, graduated anal spines. The 

 first two anal spines articulate with one pterygiophore, the third with 

 a separate one. 



