302 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Color, brownish; belly dark, like back, as usual in this family; side with a broad stripe of darker, 
edged with whitish, extending through eye to snout; caudal black, its outer angles whitish; pectoral 
and ventrals black, sometimes bordered with pale; dorsal and anal broadly edged with white anteriorly; 
adult nearly uniform dark-brown, not paler below. 
Widely distributed in the warm seas; common north to Cape Cod and occasionally to San 
Francisco, attaching itself to turtles and to large fishes. Very common in the Tropics, being found 
attached to sharks, groupers, or any other large fish, without regard to species. Few large sharks at 
Key West are without them. They are often caught with hook and line from the wharf, where they 
frequently forsake their host to take the bait. Lutken’s remark that only Remora remora has been 
recorded from sharks is no longer true. Several writers have recognized 2 species of Echeneis proper — 
naucrates, with 22 to 26 laminae, the disk 4 to 5 in body, and naucrateoides ( =a,lbicauda=holbrooki= 
lineatus) , in which the disk is longer, 3.6 to 4 in body, but composed of fewer, 20 or 21, laminge. The 
latter form is rather common on our coast, the specimens from Key West above mentioned having 21. 
Not obtained by us in Porto Rico, but recorded from that island by Professor Poeyand Dr. Stahl. 
Echeneis neucrates (misprint for naucrates ) Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. X, 261, 1758, "in Pelago Indico.” 
Echeneis albicauda Mitchill, Amer. Monthly Mag., II, 1817, 244, New York. 
Echeneis lunata Bancroft, Proc. Comm. Zool. Soc., I, 134. 
Echeneis australis Griffith, Cuvier Anim. Kingdom, 504, 1837. 
? Echeneis vittata Lowe, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1839, 89, Madeira. 
Leptecheneis naucrates , Poey, Fauna Puerto-Riquena, 333, 1881; Stahl, 1. c., 80 and 166, 1883. 
Echeneis naucrates , Jordan & Evermann, 1. e., 2269, 1898. 
Family LXVI1I. MALACANTHIIL-E. The Blanquillos. 
Body more or less elongate, fusiform or compressed. Head subconical, anterior profile usually 
convex; suborbital without bony stay; bones not greatly developed; cranial bones not cavernous; 
opercular bones mostly unarmed. Mouth rather terminal, little oblique; teeth rather strong; no teeth 
on vomer or palatines; premaxillary usually with a blunt posterior canine, somewhat as in the Labridse; 
premaxillaries protractile; maxillary without supplemental bone, not slipping under edge of preorbital. 
Gills 4, a long slit behind fourth; pseudo branchiae well developed; gill-membranes separate, or more 
or less united, often adherent to isthmus; lower pharyngeals separate. Scales small, ctenoid; lateral 
line present, complete, more or less concurrent with back; dorsal fin long and low, usually continuous, 
spinous portion always much less developed than soft portion, but never obsolete; anal fin very long, 
its spines feeble and few; caudal fin forked; tail diphy cereal; ventrals thoracic or sub jugular, i, 5, 
close together; pectoral fin not very broad, rays all branched; vertebrae in normal or slightly increased 
number (24 to 30) . Pyloric caeca few or none. 
Fishes of temperate and tropical seas, some of them reaching a large size. Genera about 6; species 
about 8 to 10, mostly American. The relationships of the family are obscure, and it may be that the 
genera here associated are not really closely allied. 
Malacanthinte: 
a. Vertebra 24; peropercle entire. 
b. Soft dorsal and anal extremely long, each with more than 40 rays; form slender; scales very small.. Malacanthus 
aa. Vertebrae more than 24; preopercle more or less serrate. 
CAULOLATILIN^li 
c. Soft dorsal and anal moderate, each with 22 to 27 soft rays; preopercle serrate; scales rather small; form robust. 
d. Upper jaw with posterior canines; dorsal spines graduated Caulolatilus, 144 
Lathing: 
cc. Soft dorsal and anal short, each of 13 to 15 soft rays; preopercle denticulate; scales small; form robust. 
e. Nape with a large adipose appendage; a fleshy prolongation on each side of labial fold, extending forward behind 
angle of mouth Lopholatilus 
