24 



4- Fam. SOLENOSTOMIDAE. 



Physoclists. Body compressed, tail very short with an extre- 

 mely long and broad caudal fin; much produced snout a 

 strongly compressed tube through transformation of symplec- 

 ticum, quadratum and anterior part of praeoperculum into 

 long and high plates. Mouth small, terminal, oblique, bordered 

 above by the intermaxillaries, which are edentulous like the 

 maxillaries, mandibularies, palatines, pterygoids and vomer. 

 Vertebrae without articular processes; the 3 anterior vertebrae 

 suturally united. Skin with large stellate ossifications, leaving 

 large interspaces naked, arranged in longitudinal and transverse- 

 series, forming an uninterrupted dorsal and ventral median 

 keel before first dorsal and ventrals, rendering the anterior 

 part of the trunk immovable. No visible lateral line. Olfactory 



Fig. 12. Solenostoimis cyatiopterus Blkr. rj^ 



showing dermal skeleton, i — v Superior row of unpaired median scutes : 



1 — IV Inferior row of unpaired scutes; i — 6 members of the thoracic 



transverse rows of scutes; o operculum, .r suboperculum, po praeoperculum, 



sy symplecticum, qn quadratum (After Jungersen). 



organ an open pit, smooth in the female, provided with radi- 

 ating lamellae in the male. The posttemporal (attached to skull) 

 and the supracleithrum are similar to the stellate ossifications; 

 otherwise the pectoral arch is normally attached to the skull; 

 pterygials elongated, the lowermost by far the largest. Ventrals 

 abdominal; opposite to spinous dorsal ; the soft dorsal opposite 

 to anal, both with numerous unbranched rays, like those of 

 the rounded pectorals and the caudal. Operculum well developed. 

 Gillopenings wide. Four complete lobate gills; pseudobranchia 

 large. One bifid branchiostegal. 



Marine fishes constituting a single genus. 



