144 The Philippine Journal of Science 1923 



Genus ARIOSOMA Swainson 

 Ariosoma Swainson, The Natural History of Fishes, Amphibians, and 



Reptiles or Monocardian Animals 2 (1839) 194. 

 Congrellus Ogilby, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales (1898). 



A genus comprising many small congers distinguished by the 

 more forward origin of the dorsal and the greater develop- 

 ment of large mucus cavities in the front part of the head; 

 snout usually prominent; posterior nostrils opposite middle of 

 eye, the anterior ones near tip of snout and tubulate; mouth 

 wide, not reaching hinder margin of eye ; teeth acute, in bands or 

 in a few series in jaws, not forming a cutting edge ; vomer with 

 a short patch of larger teeth or a patch of small teeth tapering 

 into a rather long and gradually larger series; teeth on inter- 

 maxillary plate small or forming a patch of larger teeth forward 

 of mouth; gill openings wide apart, nearly vertical, beginning 

 below upper margin of base of pectorals, much narrower than 

 their interspace or the diameter of eye. 



Ariosoma Swainson must take precedence over Congrellus 

 Ogilby. 

 Ariosoma obud * sp. nov. Plate 1, fig. 2. 



Depth 3.1 in head, 18.4 in length; head 5.9 in length, 1.55 

 in trunk; head and trunk together about 2\ in total length and 

 three-fourths as long as tail; eye 4.42 in head, and almost as 

 long as snout; gape extends to a point beneath forward margin 

 of eye and is 3 1 in head ; pectorals 2.8 in head. 



Teeth very small and needlelike, the maxillary bands of about 

 four rows at forward end, narrowing down at rear to two rows ; 

 a dense mass of slightly larger teeth covers intermaxillary plate, 

 filling in all space between the forward ends of maxillaries, and 

 merges into those of vomer which begin as three poorly defined 

 rows and soon become a single series, five-sevenths as long as 

 maxillary bands; teeth of the mandibles in four rows at for- 

 ward end, becoming a single row posteriorly. 



An elongate little eel with subcylindrical body and compressed 

 tail; dorsal profile convex, snout projecting slightly, lower jaws 

 weak; eye large, circular; lips thick and recurved; muciferous 

 cavities and pores numerous and prominent on jaws and around 

 eyes; those of lower jaw continuous with lateral line, which 

 originates on nape; forty pores in lateral line forward of anus; 



* From obud, a Visayan name for eels belonging to the Leptocephalidffi. 



