FAMILY POMACENTRIDAE — WOODS AND SCHULTZ 



75 



to teeth of outer row. Snout scaled to nostrils, which are close to tip, 

 preorbital and suborbital scaled; the latter narrow, with margin free; 

 margin of preopercle sUghtly crenulate; 5th to 7 th dorsal spines long- 

 est, subequal; soft dorsal and anal pointed, rays of caudal lobes 

 filamentous; pelvics with outer ray filamentous reaching to first 

 anal ray; pectorals angular. 



Color in alcohol. — Lips gray, head light brownish or purplish brown 

 above, lower part of head light brown; opercle with 3 indistinct dark 

 wavy radiating lines, posterior margin of opercle blackish in some 

 specimens, interopercle and subopercle blackish in others; body dark 

 reddish brown posteriorly to first dorsal soft rays and posterior base of 

 anal fin, caudal peduncle and caudal fin yellowish white; spiny dorsal 

 fin dark brown or black, soft dorsal dark at bases of first 2 or 3 rays, 

 rest of rays pale; anal spines and first 6 rays dark reddish brown or 

 black, rest of rays dark basally, pale distally ; caudal fin pale yellowish 

 with trace of dusky along upper and lower rays ; pelvics dark brown or 

 black; pectoral membranes pale, rays outlined by black color, entire 

 base of pectoral black both on scaly base and extending on base of 

 rays. 



Remarks. — This is the first species of this genus in which we have 

 observed the jaw teeth to be different in the two sexes. 



We know nothing of the breeding habits of this species but suggest 

 the differences in teeth are correlated with breeding rather than 

 feeding. 



We have re-examined the types of Chromis leucurus Gilbert (pi. 

 84, A) from the Hawaiian Islands and Chromis iomelas Jordan and 

 Scale from Samoa, and believe these two species to be different from 

 C. dimidiatus from the Northern Marshalls and the Philippines, as 

 shown by differences in color and in the number of soft rays in the 

 dorsal and anal fins. C. iomelas is dark brown on the anterior half of 



Table 87. — Counts for three closely related species of Chromis 



