Interim Account of 

 Family Searsiidae 



HENRY B. BIGELOW 



Museum of Comparative Zoology 

 Harvard University 



Characters. Essentially as in the Alepocephalidae, except that there is a volu- 

 minous sac extending forward underneath the skin of each shoulder and opening 

 rearward through a Tubular papilla so conspicuous that it affords a convenient and 

 reliable field mark by which a member of this family can be recognized. This shoulder 

 apparatus appears to be a secretory organ, probably producing luminous mucus. 

 Pelvic fins are wanting in a few iPIatytroctes). 



Remarks. The type genus Searsia was described by Parr in 1937 (1:12), but it 

 was not until 1951 (2:2) that he proposed and defined the family Searsiidae to include 

 the genera Searsia Parr 1937, Platytroctes Giinther 1878, Platytroctegen Lloyd 1909, 

 Holtbyrnia Parr 1937, Barbantus Parr 1951, Normichthys Parr 1951, Pellisolus Parr 

 1 95 1, and Persparsia Parr 1956. [As this paper goes to press, Parr's recent extensive 

 and complete monograph of the known Searsiidae is at hand (j). To the genera already 

 listed above, he has added Mirorictus Parr 1947, Sagamichthys Parr 1953, Maulisia Parr 

 i960, and Mentodus Parr 1951, with Mirorictus in the subfamily Mirorictinae, Platy- 

 troctes and Platytroctegen in the subfamily Platytroctinae, and all the other genera in the 

 subfamily Searsinae. — y.h.o.] 



The Searsiidae, like the Alepocephalidae (p. 250), are deep-sea fish, thus far re- 

 ported in the western North Atlantic for the offing of Delaware Bay, the Caribbean; 

 the offing of Pernambuco, equatorial Brazil; and the vicinity of Bermuda; also for 

 the middle and eastern Atlantic off northwestern Africa, Cape Verde, and the Gulf of 

 Gascony; the offing of southern Africa in the eastern South Atlantic; the Bay of 

 Bengal; and the eastern equatorial Pacific off the Bay of Panama. The shallowest 

 haul from which any searsiid has yet been reported was from 500 fms., in the Bay 

 of Bengal. 



