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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM 



VOL. 85 



DIXIPHISTOPS MEGALOPS, new species 



Figure 55 



Deptli 34^ in lenfftli from snout tip; head from snout tip (not 

 tip of rostral extensions) 21/2, width 2. Snout 2% in head; eye 31/3, 

 11/^ in snout, little greater than interorbital ; maxillary reaches below 

 front eye edge, expansion 3 in eye, length 2% in head; bands of 

 very minute, fine, villiform teeth in jaws, concealed in closed jaws; 

 no teeth on palate; bony rostral extension on each side of end of 

 snout 11/4 in rest of head ; interorbital 4 in head, rather deeply con- 

 cave. Gill rakers 3 + 17, slender, 21/2 in eye; 2 above and 7 below 

 very short, low rudiments; gill filaments % of eye or % of gill rakers. 



A very low, blunt, obtuse, supraorbital posterior knob; long, 

 strong spine projecting back each side of occiput reaching spinous 

 dorsal origin; very small, low spine above each posterior nostril; 

 keel of suborbital stay distinct, entire, ends in a single short spine 



H.W.F.del. 



FiGURK 55. — Dixiphistops megnlops, new genus, nev/ species. Type. 



behind at angle of preopercle edge, spine not quite reaching gill open- 

 ing; opercle with small spine, level with lower part of eye; large, 

 slender humeral spine, little inclined upward and backward, length 

 11/4 ill eye. Row of rugose striate bucklers along base of spinous 

 dorsal, one also just in front of fin invading about 1/3 of predorsal 

 space, which otherv/ise finely scaled. Soft dorsal without bucklers 

 though on each side of base a very small, inconspicuous, short spine, 

 very evident as the finger is drawn along the base of the fin. 



Scales minute, irregular, largely little or nonimbricate; chest, 

 breast, prepectoral region, and space behind bases of paired fins 

 naked. Lateral line distinct, tubes 53 in its course to caudal base. 

 Bones of head all more or less finely and smoothly rugose striate. 



D. VII-12, third spine 2% in head from snout tip, third ray 3140 1 

 A. 12, I, eighth ray 3%, fin edge not notched; caudal 1%, hind edge 

 little concave and end of each lobe pointed; least depth of caudal 

 peduncle 2 in eye; pectoral moderate, reaches front part of anal, fin 



