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136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. lie 



separated charaeids into three families, one of which was the Eryth- 

 rinidae. He divided this family into two subfamihes. The first, the 

 Erythrininae, contains his Lebiasinidi (= Lebiasinini of the present 

 work), Erythrinidi (= Erythrininae), Pyrrhulinidi (= Pyrrhuhnina) 

 and Nannostomidi (== Nannostomina). The second subfamily of 

 Hoedeman's Erythrinidae is the Anostominae. In this group 

 he placed four tribes, Curimatidi, Anostomidi, Hemiodontidi, and 

 Prochilodidi. Hoedeman (1956a, p. 12) stated: 



Vers le milieu de I'eocene, les Erythrinidae se divisent en deux sous-families: 

 (a) Erythrininae, avec les tribus actuelles: (1) Lebiasinidi, (2) Erythrinidi, 

 (3) Pyrrhulinidi, et (4) Nannostomidi; et la seconde sous-families: (b) 

 Anostominae, avec les tribus: (5) Curimatidi, (6) Anostomidi, (7) Hemio- 

 dontidi, et (8) Prochilodidi. 



There is no fossil evidence for this statement nor is there fossil evi- 

 dence for any of the other of Hoedeman's phylogenetic and time- 

 sequence inferences and speculations given in his paper. 



Piton (1938) described two fossil fishes from the mid-Eocene at 

 Menat, France. Piton thought that these fishes, Prohydrocyon pelle- 

 grini and Procharacinus arverniensis, were fossil charaeids. Perhaps 

 Hoedeman's use of the date of mid-Eocene is from Piton 's paper. It 

 appears now that there is no evidence for charaeids from the mid- 

 Eocene of France (Weitzman, 1960). 



The original evidence presented by Hoedeman (1956a) for his phy- 

 logeny was apparently derived from examination of a few representa- 

 tive characid scales. Examination of characid scales of the genera 

 listed in the material section of Weitzman (1962) shows a greater 

 variation in the scale morphology of characid groups than Hoedeman 

 found. Sufficient variation was found among the representatives of 

 the various groups to indicate that, although scales wiU prove useful 

 as an aid in establishing a classification and for drawing phylogenetic 

 inferences, their use alone, without an attempt to correlate them with 

 many other morphological characters, may more often prove mis- 

 leading than helpful. 



Osteology of Poecilobrycon harrisoni and Related Charaeids 



In the osteological discussion below, parts of the skeleton of Poecilo- 

 brycon harrisoni are described and compared with other species of 

 Poecilobrycon and Nannostomiis. Also, other characid genera and 

 groups thought, either by the present author or other authors, to be 

 pertinent to a discussion of the relationships of the Nannostomina 

 are compared with the basic skeletal plan of Nannostomiis and 

 Poecilobrycon. 



Cranium (figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). — The median ethmoid bone is a large, 

 rather thin plate that has a profile in dorsal view as shown in figure 2. 



