EDIBLE FISHES OF (^f EENSLAND—OaiEBY. 45 



EDIBLE FISHES OF QUEENSLAND. 



By J. Douglas Ogilby (Ichthyologist). 

 (Plates XVI to XXVI.) 



Part X.— PLESIOPID/E (No. 1). 



PARAPLESIOPS Bleeker. 



Muvpelia Castelnau, Proc. Zool. & Acel. Soc. Vic, ii, 1873, p. 51 (prolonriaia — bleelceri). Not 



Suepclia Schinz. 

 Paraplesiops Bleeker, Verli. Akatl. Anist., xv, 1875, Pseudoclirom., p. 3 (hlecl'eri) . 



Body ovate or subovate, more or less eomin-essed. Scales large or 

 moderate, adherent, ciliated. Two lateral lines, the upper elo.se to the doi-sal 

 profile and terminating below or a little behind the last dorsal raj-s, the lower 

 along the middle of the tail; tubes simple and straight. Head large; cheeks 

 partly, opercles Avholly scaly, the scales cycloid. Mouth terminal aud pro- 

 tractile, with rather wide, oblique cleft, the jaws equal; maxillary exposed and 

 distally dilated, with supplemental bone. Jaws, vomer, palatines, and tongue 

 armed with bands of villiform teeth, the outer and inner rows in the former 

 somewhat enlarged and conical. Angle of preoperele entire or with several short 

 coarse spines concealed beneath a membranous border.^ One dorsal fin with 

 xi or xii 9 to 11 rays, the iuterspinous membrane deeply cleft and penicillate ; soft 

 portion of fin much shorter than the spinous and acutely angulated behind ; base 

 of fin seal.v. Caudal rounded, with 17 principal rays, the upper and lower simple. 

 Anal short, with iii 10 to 12 rays, the soft portion similar to that of the dorsal. 

 Pectorals more or less broadly rounded, with 18 or 19 rays. Ventral inserted 

 below the pectoral-base, with i 4 rays, the outer soft ray thickened and produced, 

 cleft nearly to the base. Gill-openings wide ; gill-membranes separate, free from 

 the isthmus ; branchiostegals six ; pseudobi-anchia; present ; gills four, a slit behind 

 the fourth ; gill-rakers short stout and spinulose. (napd, near ; Plesiops, an 

 allied genus.) 



A small genus, containing five species from the shores of Temperate 

 Australia. Though small, good panfishes. 



The following key to the species of Paraplesiops at present recognized 

 having been sent to me by Mr. McCulloch, I gladly avail myself of his permission 

 to publish it, more es))ecially as in drawing it up he had the advantage of having 

 before him good examples of all five species. Among other things he writes to me 

 as follows: — "These fishes are very variable as regards their fin and scale counts. 



' These spines are not present in the three extraliniital species, and it may, therefore, bu 

 advisable to segregate the Queensland species under the subgeneric name Acanthogonia, 

 characterized by their presence and the larger scales. 



