BEVIEW OF THE QUEENSLAND POMACANTHINM.—OGILBY. 99 



REVIEW OF THE QUEENSLAND 

 POMACANTHINAE. 



By J. Douglas Ocilby. 



The Pomacanthince may be briefly diagnosed as " chcetodontoid fishes 

 furnished with a strong spine at the angle of the preopercle." 



The genus Holacanthus Lacepede comprises a number of species varying' 

 greatly inter se. It is not, therefore, surprising that authors have made several 

 attempts to split the genus into sections of more or less doubtful value. Swain- 

 son first proposed to separate H. lamarckii Lacepede under the name Genicanthus, 

 but this was quite unnecessary, that species being absolutely congeneric with 

 Lacepede 's type II. tricolor, as that author recognized by placing the two in 

 his "premier sous-genre." Kaup next proposed the genus C entropy ge, with 

 H. tibicen Cuvier & Valenciennes as its type, under the erroneous impression that 

 the species possessed four anal spines; otherwise being similar to Holaeantlnis, 

 it too becomes a synonym of that genus. Bleeker then, in 1877, made a more 

 valuable contribution to the literature of the genus by dividing it into three — 

 Clnrfodontoplus, Holacanthus, and Acanthocliatodon. The three principal 

 characters relied on in support of his views an — the amount of attachment 

 between the gill-membranes and the isthmus, the form of the body, and the size 

 of the scales. The two first show such wide divergence as to be unreliable, and 

 so become negligible as factors in the subdivision of the genus, but in my opinion 

 the third may well be utilised for that purpose, as indeed had been partly done 

 by Giinther many years previously for the sectional separation of the species. 

 Angelichthys Jordan & Evermann, having as its type the CluBtodon ciUaris 

 of Linnaeus, does not seem to require recognition. 



The present review deals with seven species, only that number having 

 been as yet recorded from our coast ; there are, however, at least five other 

 Indo-Pacific species which should eventually be found in Queensland seas ; these 

 are printed in italics in the accompanying list. 



Holacanthus flavissimus Cuvier & Valenciennes. 

 „ bicolor Bloch. 



,, sexstriatus Kuhl & van Hasselt. 



„ IMPERATOR Blocll. 



,, semicirculatus Cuvier & Valenciennes. 



bispinosus Giinther. Amboina to Tahiti. 



