NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF QUEENSLAND FISHES.— McCULLOCH. 47 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF QUEENSLAND 



FISHES. 



By Allan R. McCulloch, Zoologist, Australian Museum. 



(Plates XVI-XVIII.) 



By permission of the Trustees of the Australian Museum. 



Family PSEUDOCHROMIDID^E. 

 Genus PSEUDOCHROMIS, Eiippell. 



Tseudochromis, Eiippell, Neue Wirbelth. Fiscke, 1835, p. 8 (P. olivaceus, Eiippell). 



Assiculus, Eichardson, in Stokes, Discov. in Austr., i., 1846, p. 492 (A. punctatus, Eichardson ) . 



Onar, de Vis, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, ix., 1885, p. 875 (0. neoulosum, de Vis). 



Assiculus, Richardson, is evidently identical with Pseudochromis. The 

 several characters relied upon by Richardson to distinguish his genus are all 

 more or less developed in different species of Pseudochromis. 



A co-type of Onar neoidosum, de Vis, is in the Australian Museum 

 collection, which does not differ from Riippell's genus. 



PSEUDOCHROMIS PUNCTATUS, Richardson. 



Assiculus punctatus, Eichardson, in Stokes, Discov. in Austr., i., 1846, p. 494, pi. ii., fig. 1. 

 Pseudochromis Miilleri, Klunzinger, Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. Wien, lxxx. i., 1879, p. 370. Id., 



Macleay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, ix., 1884, p. 28. Id., Waite, Eec. Austr. Mus., vi., 



1905, p. 62. 

 CicJilops filamentosus, Macleay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, v., 1881, p. 570. 



Six examples, 53-89 mm. long, agree almost entirely with the description 

 and figure of Assiculus punctatus, as well as with P. mulleri and Cichlops 

 filamentosus. Being in a better state of preservation than Richardson's type 

 specimen, they have the body thicker than his figure shows it to be, and the top 

 of the head and nape flattened instead of sharp. Most of the dorsal rays are 

 simple instead of divided, but the anterior portion of that fin was damaged in 

 the type. In none of my specimens is the sub-opercular border crenulate as he 

 described it, but they agree so well in all other details that I have no doubt they 

 are correctly identified. 



They vary in colour, after preservation in formalin, from light to dark 

 brown, with more or less numerous, dark (blue) dots on the head and anterior 

 half of the body. A large black blotch is present on the spinous portion of the 

 dorsal, and the remainder of that fin, together with the anal and caudal, may 

 be nearly plain, or closely covered with minute ocelli. 



Loc. — Useless Inlet, Shark Bay, Western Australia. 



