order. This task would have been long delayed had it not 

 been for Bleeker, that great describer of the Indo-Aus- 

 tralian ichthyofauna. As with so many other orders of 

 fishes, a knowledge of the Indo-Pacific representatives of 

 the plectognaths is indispensable to an understanding of 

 their evolution. Here is to be found a far greater number 

 and diversity of species of plectognaths than in all other 

 areas of the world combined. If the Indo-Pacific was not 

 the cradle of the evolution and distribution of the plec- 

 tognaths, then at least it is their present center of 

 greatest speciation and morphological diversity. 



It is impossible to give here a full review of Bleeker's 

 contributions to the study of plectognaths, or to mention 

 more than a few of the numerous papers in which he de- 

 scribed new species of that order. Of particular descrip- 

 tive, but not classificatory, interest is Bleeker's 

 (1852a) "Bijdrage tot de Kennis der Blookakige (Gym- 

 nognathen)" in which numerous new species were de- 

 scribed and his (1852b) "Bijdrage tot de Kennis der 

 Balistini en Ostraciones." Of most importance to this 

 discussion, however, is Bleeker's complete classification 

 of the plectognaths, which appeared in two places: in 

 volume 5 (1865) of his monumental "Atlas Ich- 

 thyologique" and in his 1866 "Systema Balistidorum, 

 Ostracionidorum, Gymnodontidorumque Revisum." The 

 classification was the same in both works, and that 

 which is here condensed is that of the "Systema" only 

 because the definitions of the categories were more com- 

 plete there and all of the ordinal names were latinized, 

 which they were not in the "Atlas." Bleeker never used 

 the term Order Plectognathi, since he gave each of his 

 three major groups of plectognaths ordinal rank, but he 

 obviously thought of them as a natural assemblage, as 

 examination of the titles of his articles will show. His 

 classification was as follows: 



Ordo Balistidi 

 Familia I. Triacanthoidei 

 Subfamilia I. Triacanthiformes 

 TriacanthusA Acanthopleurus 

 Subfamilia II. Paratriacanthiformes 

 Triacanthodes, Hollardia 

 Familia 11. Balisteoidei 



Subfamilia I. Balistidiformes 

 Leiurus, Erythrodon, Melichthys, Balistes (with 

 five subgenera: Parabalistes, Pseudobalistes, Ba- 

 listapus, Balistes, Canthidermis) 

 Subfamilia II. Monacanthiformes 

 Phalanx 1. Monacanthini 

 Monacanthus, Chaetodermis, Paramonacan- 

 thus, Amanses, Pseudomonacanthus, Liomona- 

 canthus, Oxy monacanthus 

 Phalanx 2. Aluterini 

 Brachaluteres, Acanthaluteres, Ceratacanthus, 

 Paraluteres, Pseudaluteres, Aluteres 

 Phalanx 3. Psilocephalini 

 Psilocephalus 



Ordo Ostracionidi 

 Familia Ostracionoidei 



Ostracion (with four subgenera: Ostracion, Laeto- 

 phrys, Tetrosomus, Acanthostracion), Aracana (with 

 four subgenera: Aracana, Capropygia, Kentrocapros, 

 Anoplocapros) , Centaurus 

 Ordo Gymnodontidi 

 Familia I. Orthagoriscoidei 



Orthagoriscus 

 Familia 11. Tetraodontoidei 

 Subfamilia I. Diodontiformes 

 Phalanx 1. Trirhizacanthini 



Chilomycterus, Diodon 

 Phalanx 2. Dirhizacanthini 

 Atopomycterus, Paradiodon, Trichodiodon 

 Subfamilia 11. Tetraodontiformes 

 Phalanx 1. Tetraodontini 



Tetraodon, Crayracion, Leiodon, Chonerhinus, 

 Ephippion 

 Phalanx 2. Canthogasterini 

 Canthogaster 

 Familia HI. Triodontoidei 

 Triodon. 



The precise separation of the triacanthids from the 

 triacanthodids and of the tetraodontins from the canthi- 

 gasterins appeared here for the first time. Although his 

 groupings of the balistoids owed much to the work of Hol- 

 lard, they were well defined and concisely executed. If 

 one bears in mind that what Bleeker called Diodon we 

 now refer to as Chilomycterus, then one sees that he also 

 realized the natural division of the diodontids into those 

 with erectile two-rooted spines (Phalanx Dirhiza- 

 canthini) and those with permantly fixed three-rooted 

 spines (Phalanx Trirhizacanthini). In short, Bleeker 

 made good use of what had come before him and added 

 much new information based on both observation and 

 synthesis in his own right. His is a reasonable classifica- 

 tion even today, and at the time of its appearance it was 

 superb. 



Owen (1840 & 1845) in his "Odontography" gave what 

 are now the classic descriptions of the teeth of plectog- 

 naths. The fish classifications he used in his various 

 publications were not his own, but they are cited here to 

 show the variable handling of the plectognaths that one 

 finds up until the turn of the 19th century. In his "Odon- 

 tography," which appeared several years after Agassiz's 

 (1833) "Poissons Fossiles," Owen placed the plectog- 

 naths in two groups (scleroderms and gymnodonts) 

 within the ganoid fishes, and an Order Plectognathi was 

 not recognized. But in his "Lectures on Comparative 

 Anatomy," which appeared after Miiller's (1844) "Ueber 

 den Bau," Owen (1846) recognized the Order Plectog- 

 nathi, with three families: Balistinae, Ostraciones, 

 and Gymnodontes. The same plectognath groups were 

 recognized by Owen in his (1853) "Descriptive Cata- 

 logue of the Osteological Series," but a new term for a 



