The Fishes 



OF 



NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA, 



BY DAVID STARR JORDAN AND BARTON WARREN EVERMANN. 



PART II 



Class PISCES— Continued. 

 Subclass TELEOSTOMI— Coutiuued. 



Order ACANTHOPTERI—Coutiimed. 

 Group Percoidea — Continued. 



SPARIFORM PERCOIDS 



(With sheathing maxillary aud developed axillary ventral scales.) 

 Family CXLIX. LUTIANID.E. 



(The Snappers.) 



Body oblong or more or less elevated, covered with moderate-sized 

 adherent scales, which are more or less strongly ctenoid or almost cycloid.* 

 Lateral line well developed, concurrent with the back, not extending on 

 the caudal fin. Head large, the crests on the skull usually largely devel- 

 oped. No suborbital stay; mouth moderate or large, usually terminal, 

 low and horizontal. Premaxillaries moderately protractile, their spines 

 not extending to the occiput ; maxillary long, withoiit supplemental bone, 

 for most of its length slipping under the edge of the preorbital, which forms 

 a more or less distinct sheath, its form essentially as In the Serranidce; 

 teeth various, unequal and sharp, never incisor-like, some of them some- 

 times molar; vomer and palatines usually with villiform teeth, these 



* This account of tliis family and the other allies of the Sparidce is based on a prelimi- 

 nary review of the Sparidce by Jordan & Fesler, in Report TJ. S. Fish Commission 1889 to 

 1891, published in 1893, 421 to 544, plates 28-62. 



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