172 



TELEOSTOMES 



In South America the catfish is a regnant type, and is 

 remarkable for the variety as well as for the number and 

 size of its forms. Many, completely armoured (Fig. 178), 

 are strongly suggestive of Ganoids. Their armouring is 



Fig. 178. — South American Siluroid, 

 GiJNTHER.) Upper Amazon. 



CaUlchthys armatus. X i. (After 



metameral and archaic, their sensory canals primitive in 

 structure and arrangement. 



Mormyrus, like the catfish, appears to have long been 

 divergent from the main stem of the Teleosts. Its species 



Fig. 179. — Mormyrus oxyrhynchus. X J. (After GiJNTHER.) Nile. 



arc restricted to the Nile, one — the long-nosed J/, oxj'r/ij/n- 

 chns (Fig. 179) — figuring prominently in Egyptian myth. 

 In many of its structures it is archaic, as in axial skeleton, 

 fins, dermal characters, sensory canals ; in others, e.g. hear- 



