been incorporated into the present study, for the purpose of evaluating relationships 

 among species of ageneiosids. There are significant problems with Ferraris' 

 analysis, but these mostly involve relationships among auchenipterid genera. One of 

 the most drastic implications of Ferraris' study was his conclusion that the long- 

 standing nomenclature of the family-group names must be changed: 



The family Auchenipteridae, as most generally delimited, is not a 

 monophyletic group. Species of the Ageneiosidae are more closely 

 related to Auchenipterus than are many species that have traditionally 

 been put in the Auchenipteridae. If we accept the constraint that a 

 classification must be based on monophyletic groups and that named 

 taxa include all members of a lineage, the Auchenipteridae must 

 either include Ageneiosus and its relatives, or the auchenipterids must 

 be split into a number of different families. The approach adopted 

 here partakes of both of these solutions, r, -i, Ferraris (1988:141) 



Ferraris proposed a reclassification in which he lumped y4^ene/oms and 

 Tetranematichthys with several other genera as a subfamily of the Auchenipteridae, 

 and he re-elevated Centromochlus and allied genera to family status (Table 4). 



The greatest problem with Ferraris' classification involves contradictions 

 between his morphological analysis and his cladograms, and extensive homoplasy. 

 For example, in recognizing the Centromochlidae as a monophyletic group, he cites 

 numerous unique morphological characters throughout the text, but he includes only 

 three putative synapomorphies of this group in his cladogram of the doradoid 

 families (Ferraris 1988; fig. 41), two of which cross-reference io Auchenipterus, 

 Epapterus, and Entomocorus in the text (pp. 52 and 54); displacement of the 

 gonopore to the distal tip of the anal fin, and laminar ossifications of the last few 

 anal-fin pterygiophores. Many of the characters that Ferraris considered to be 

 synapomorphies of the family Centromochlidae involve the anal fin; in males of 

 these taxa {Centromochlus, Glanidium, Gelanoglanis, and Tatia), the anal fin is 

 markedly different from that found in any of the other auchenipterid genera, having 



