l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



PSEUDOPRIACANTHUS SERRULA (Gilbert) 



Pnacanthus serrula Gilbert, 1890, p. 450, Albatross Station 2797, 8°6'3o" N., 

 78°5i' W., Panama Bay, in 33 fathoms (original description). 



Pseudopriacanthiis serrula Jordan and Evermann, 1896, p. 1239 (description) ; 

 Meek and Hildebrand, 1925, p. 490 (description). 



rPseudopriacanthus lucasanus Clark, 1936, p. 388, Cape San Lucas, Baja 

 California (original description). 



Head 2.6; depth 1.8; D. X, 11 ; A. Ill, 10; P. 17; scales 53. 



Body short and deep, moderately compressed, the ventral outline 

 anteriorly more strongly convex than the dorsal; caudal peduncle 

 short and deep, 2.8 in head; snout only about half length of eye, 

 4.35 in head; eye extremely large, 2.25; interorbital 4.3; mouth 

 strongly oblique; lower jaw projecting prominently, entering general 

 dorsal outline of head ; maxillary nearly as broad as pupil, not quite 

 reaching vertical from anterior margin of pupil, 1.85 in head; teeth 

 in jaws in villiform bands, some of the outer ones in anterior part 

 of each jaw slightly enlarged, also present in villiform bands on vomer 

 and palatines; preorbital bone scarcely half width of pupil, rather 

 finely serrate above and below; supraorbital ridge finely serrate; 

 preopercle with fine serrae on its vertical margin and with larger 

 ones at its angle and on the horizontal margin; gill rakers fairly 

 short, 17 on lower limb of first arch; lateral line arched anteriorly, 

 running rather close to back; scales small, strongly ctenoid, extend- 

 ing forward on head, covering it fully except for the premaxillaries 

 and the lower lips; dorsal fin long continuous, the spines fluted, 

 graduated to fourth, the fourth to seventh of nearly equal length, the 

 rest shorter, the fifth 1.45 in head, the margin of the soft part convex, 

 the rays spinous at base, the longest ones only a little shorter than 

 the longest spines; caudal fin round, about as long as head without 

 snout ; anal with three graduated, fluted spines, the third 2.3 in head, 

 the longest soft rays much longer than the longest spine, about equal to 

 longest rays of dorsal; ventral fin large, reaching opposite base of 

 second anal spine, nearly as long as head, its spine i.i in head; 

 pectoral fin shorter, rather broadly rounded, 1.6 in head. 



Color uniform light gray, scarcely paler below than above; fins 

 uniform pale except for dark tips or margins of the soft parts of the 

 dorsal and anal, and the caudal and ventral. 



The description was based on a single large specimen, 280 mm. in 

 total length, which was taken off Talara, Peru. It was compared with 

 the small type, which is only 38 mm. in total length. The comparison, 

 although not entirely satisfactory, shows fair agreement. The two 

 agree in the number of fin rays present, and perhaps more signifi- 



