1849.] Catalogue of Malayan Fishes. 1361 



Physogaster* lunaris, Muller: Abh. Berl. Akad. 1839, 



252 ('). 

 Tetrodon lunaris, Temm. et Schl. Fauna Jap. Pise. CXXII. 



Fig. 1. 

 Head above and back green olive with a mixture of brownish, lighter 

 on the upper third of the sides ; rest of the latter to the abdominal keel, 

 sides of the head and opercles white satin with a broad longitudinal 

 band of shining yellow brass from the eye to the caudal ; abdomen 

 milk-white ; fins yellow ^posterior caudal margin blackish. Iris bright 

 yellow brass- coloured, blackish towards the orbit. 

 D 12, 13 or 14, C 8f, A 11 or 12, P 16, Br. V. 

 Habit. — Sea and estuaries of Malayan Peninsula and Islands. 



Coromandel, Bay of Bengal, Gangetic estuaries, Suez, 



Total length : 1 foot. 



The length of the head slightly exceeds } of the total. The eye, bor- 

 dering on the profile, is situated nearer the gill-opening than the muzzle, 

 above the level of the former and of the pectorals ; its longest diameter, 

 ascending obliquely backwards, is J of the length of the head. The dis- 

 tance between the eyes equals the diameter. The oval nasal cavity is 

 situated midway between the eyes and the muzzle ; each contains two 

 small papillular apertures. The teeth and tongue are normal. The thread- 

 like lateral line commences beneath the posterior part of the nasal oval 

 cavity, descends a short distance nearly vertically, then proceeds horizon- 

 tally over the upper part of the cheek ; opposite the posterior part of the 

 orbit it ascends obliquely to the upper margin of the opercle, between 

 which and the posterior angle of the orbit it gives off a branch which de- 

 scribes an arch over the supraorbital margin. From the upper margin of 

 the opercle the lateral line follows the profile of the back, a little above 

 the lower margin of the spiny portion to a little in front of the dorsal, 

 when it descends obliquely and then continues nearly in the middle of 

 the tail, nearer, however, the soft abdominal keel than the profile of the 



* Physogaster, Muller, 1841. "With a hollow papilla in the nasal cavity, 

 not, however, continued in a tube ; lateral margin of abdomen raised into a soft keel 

 from the throat to the tail, corresponding to a second, superior keel on the sides of 

 the tail."— Physogaster is inadmissible, as it has been applied by Latreille in 1833 

 to a genus of Coleoptera. 



8 m 2 



