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TWO NEW CONGRID EELS AND A NEW FLATFISH 



By earl D. REID 



Aid, Division of Fishes, US. National Museum 



(With One Plate) 



Examination of the fishes of the families Congridae and Pleuronec- 

 tidae obtained by the First Johnson-Smithsonian Deep-Sea Expedi- 

 tion reveals three undescribed forms, two of which belong to the 

 former and one to the latter group. 



Family CONGRIDAE 



Comparison of the present congrids with material in the National 

 Museum and examination of the literature leads to uncertainty as to 

 the proper generic assignment of these specimens. It would seem that 

 the confusion regarding the generic relationship of the congrid eels is 

 due, at least in part, to the flexibility of the characters upon which sev- 

 eral of the genera are based. Parr,' in his discussion of Ariosoma and 

 related genera, points out the unreliability of the definition of tooth 

 characters as construed by various authors, showing that interpreta- 

 tion of the definitions as well as of the tooth characters themselves is 

 more or less a matter of individual notion. The genus Ariosoma, as 

 now understood, embraces several closely related groups, the ultimate 

 separation of which must be accomplished before we can hope for an 

 understandable taxonomic arrangement of the congrids. These groups 

 can be worked out and properly classified only when studied on a cos- 

 mopolitan basis, as there can be no doubt that generic relationship 

 among the congrid eels is distributed over widely separated areas. 

 As pointed out above, tooth character alone has very little value, since 

 the variations are so extensive that intergradations are found through- 

 out the group almost without exception. However, the shape and 

 position of the dental plates, spacing of the groups, and width of the 

 bands of teeth seem to be the most reliable dental characters for pur- 

 poses of generic distinction. 



^ Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 3, art. 5, pp. 19-31. 1932- 

 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol.91, No. 15 



