Jordan and Evcrmann. — Fishes of North America. 2025 



slender, almost concealed in the membrane ; pectorals broad ; central fins 

 wanting. Small fishes of the rock pools of the North Pacific, (d-, priva- 

 tive; dxeXo?, leg; ix^iv<i, fish.) 



2394. ASCELICHTHYS RHODORUS, Jordan & Gilbert. 



Head 3 ; depth 5. D. IX, 19 ; A. 15 ; P. 16. Head low, rounded anteriorly ; 

 maxillary reaching to posterior border of eye. No scales, prickles, or bar- 

 bels anywhere, except a fringed cirrus over the eye; preopercle with a 

 short, simple, strongly hooked spine; spines directed downward and for- 

 ward on subopercle and interoperclc ; lateral line continuous. Dorsal fins 

 connected by membrane, the spines low, weak, nearly uniform; soft dor- 

 sal nearly twice as high as spinous ; pectorals about reaching vent. Dark 

 olivaceous, sometimes with saddle-like pale blotches; lips rosy; spinous 

 dorsal dusky, edged in life with bright crimson ; other fins dusky, edged 

 with paler, the pectoral slightly barred. Length VS inches. Pacific Coast, 

 Sitka to Cape Mendocino ; very abundant among rocks between tide marks 

 at Neah Bay, the only locality where numbers of sjieciniens have been 

 found, one of the most remarkable of the Cottidw. {podov, rose; opo?, 

 margin.) 



Ascelichthys rhodorus, JOEDAN Sc GILBERT, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1880, 264, Waadda Island, 

 Neah Bay, near Cape Flattery (Coll. Jordan & Gilbert); Jobdan &i. SxAEKS, Proc. 

 Cal. Ac. Sci. 1895, 811, pi. 84. 



756. PSYCHROLUTES, Giinther. 

 (Spineless Sculpins.) 



Psychrolutes, GirNTHEE, Cat., ui, 516, 18G1 (paradoxus). 



Body tadpole-shajjed, tapering from the head to the very slender tail, 

 covered with very loose, naked, movable skin. Head large, depressed, 

 flattish above; snout obtuse, rounded; interocular space very broad, the 

 ocular ridges obsolete; mouth very large; mandible short, little cavern- 

 ous, its forms broadly U-shaped; maxillary entirely adnate to the skin of 

 the preorbital; jaws with bands of villiform teeth; no teeth on vomer or 

 palatines; no spines or cirri about the head; suborbital stay narrow. 

 Gill membranes united to the isthmus; gills 3^, no slit behind the fourth. 

 Branchiostegals 7. Fins connected; spinous dorsal of short, slender, 

 flexible spines entirely embedded in the skin and not visible withotit dis- 

 section as the spines do not rise above level of the muscles; soft dorsal 

 short, high, the rays close together, the total number 12 to 24 ; anal low, 

 of 9 rays; caudal separate; pectoral fins long, with a broad, procurrent 

 base. Ventrals I, 3, close together, distinct, the inner edge adnate to 

 the body. Small fishes, very closely allied to Cottunculus and Malacocotfns 

 on the one hand and to the Liparididw on the other, their eliaracters, 

 like those of the latter family, arising from degeneration of the Cotlidw. 

 The extension of the lax skin over the spinous dorsal and the bones of 

 the head afiord the only tangible diagnostic character of the subfamily 

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