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Fishery Bulletin 96(4), 1998 
first anal pterygiophore broadly thickened (15); ocu- 
lar-side palatine reduced and not articulated with 
pterygoid (28, Fig. 2B); gill rakers on first epi- 
branchial absent (29) with exception in Hippoglossus 
stenolepis; gill rakers on second and third epi- 
branchials (30, 31) reduced ( Hippoglossus ) or absent 
(Verasper ); and gill rakers on first hypobranchial re- 
duced (32). 
These states are homoplastic in other lineages of 
the Pleuronectidae. Thickening of the first anal 
pterygiophore (15) unites taxa in the third pleuro- 
nectid lineage. Reduction of the palatine on the ocu- 
