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Fishery Bulletin 96( 1 ), 1998 
hypurals; species with 1-3-2 pattern, pigmented peri- 
toneum, and four hypurals, with newly described 
species presented first; those with 1-3-2 pattern, pig- 
mented peritoneum, and five hypurals; S. trewavasae 
with the 1-3-3 pattern; four species with a 1-4-2 pat- 
tern (three with shared pigmentation pattern fol- 
lowed by S. ommaspilus)-, and nine species with the 
1-4-3 pattern, arranged alphabetically in subgroups 
of increasing numbers ( 10, 11, 12) of caudal-fin rays. 
In the species accounts, only total ranges for mer- 
istic features are presented; modal counts can be 
found in the tables. Variation in meristic features of 
widely distributed species were examined for speci- 
mens collected throughout the geographic range of 
the species. Although statistically significant in- 
traspecific differences were not apparent in features 
examined, meristic data, partitioned by geographic 
region, were tabulated to facilitate identifications. 
Some sympatric species have nearly complete over- 
lap in meristic features when data are summarized 
for specimens collected throughout their entire 
ranges. However, when meristic data for specimens 
within smaller geographic regions are examined more 
closely, the amount of overlap in counts between some 
pairs of co-occurring species was found to be less, 
and thus counts of meristic features were more in- 
formative, thereby facilitating identifications. 
Material examined for western Atlantic species is 
listed in the Appendix. Specimens of species occur- 
ring in other regions and used in comparative analy- 
ses were listed in Munroe (1990, 1992). 
Interdigitation pattern (ID) Patterns of interdigi- 
tation of proximal dorsal pterygiophores and neural 
spines (Fig. 1, A-E) were counted and recorded (Table 
2) according to the methods of Munroe (1992) for the 
