2448 Btdlctin //, United States National Museum. 



flexible spines; pectoral lins broad, placed low; no ventral fins. Head 

 very large, compressed, the snout rather short; mouth large; jaws with 

 very strong, conical canines anteriorly; vomer and palatines each with 

 about 2 rows of coarse molars, the palatine band shutting against similar 

 teeth on the sides of the lower jaw. Gill membranes broadly united to 

 the isthmus. No pyloric cjpca. Large, eel-shaped fishes of the North 

 Pacific, remarkable for the tremendous dentition, the head essentially as in 

 Anarhichus, the body strikingly different. {Anarlnclias; /jOi)?, fish.) 



2806. ANARRHKHTHYS OCELLATUS, Ayrea. 

 ("Wolf-Eel.) 



Head 11; depth 15. D. CCL; A. 233; P. 19. Body elongate, formed as 

 in an eel; the head and jaws very strong. Pectorals broad, more than i 

 head; longest dorsal spine i head. Color dark greenish, the body and 

 dorsal fin everywhere covered with round, ocellated black spots of various 

 sizes, the light markings forming reticulations around the spots; head 

 paler, with the reticulations in much finer pattern; anal pale-edged. 

 Length 5 to 8 feet. Pacific coast, from Monterey north to Puget Sound ; 

 generally common. One of our most remarkable fishes ; rarely used as food. 

 It feeds chiefly on sea-urchins and sand dollars, {oecllatits, with eye-like 

 spots.) 

 Anarrhichthys ocellatus, Atres, Proc. Cal. Ac. Nat. Sci., I, 1855, 31, San Francisco; Jordan 



& Gilbert, Sj-nopsis, 782, 1893 ; Jordan & Starks, Fishes Puget Sound, 848, 1895. 

 Anarrhichtlii/sfelis, Girard, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1854, 150, San Francisco (Type, No. 

 511. Coll. W. O. Ayres), name only, no description; Girard, U. S. Pac. R. R. Surv., 

 X, Fish., 125, pi. 25a, figs. 1 to 3, 1858; Gunther, Cat., ni, 211, 1861. 



Family CCIII, CERDALID.^, 



Body elongate, compressed, covered with small scales; no lateral line; 

 head small ; gill openings reduced to small slit-like openings more or 

 less horizontal in position ; dorsal fin very long and low, anteriorly of slen- 

 der spines, which pass gradually into the soft rays; no free spines; no 

 cirri; tail not isocercal; pseudobranchiiB well developed. Three species 

 known, from the west coast of tropical America in rock pools near the 

 shore. The presence of some spines in the dorsal separates them from the 

 Scytalinidw, while the small gill openings distinguish them from the 

 Bhnniidw, to which they are more nearly allied. 



a. Ventral flns each with 2 rays; dorsal rays 41; body moderately elongate; greatest 

 depth ]0| in length; distance from insertion of dorsal to occiput equal to length 

 of head. Cerdale, 927. 



aa. Ventral flns each with 1 ray; dorsal rays 48 to 55; body very elongate, eel-like, its 

 depth 15 to 18 in length. MiCRODrsMUs, 928. 



927. CERDALE, Jordan & Gilbert. 

 Cerdale, Jordan & Gilbert, Unll. U. S. Fish Comm. 1881, 332 (ionthas). 



This genus diflfers from Microdeamua in the presence of 2 rays in the ven- 

 tral fin. Its body is much less elongate than in Microdesmus. The gill 

 openings are reduced to small, nearly horizontal slits below and in front 

 of the pectoral fins. (HSpSaXiJ, the wary one, the fox-like.) 



