The Osteology and Relationships of Certain Gobioid Fishes, 
with Particular Reference to the Genera Kraemeria and Microdesmus 1 
William A. Gosline 2 
INTRODUCTION 
Among tropical marine perciform fishes 
there is a group of elongate, presumably bur- 
rowing forms of small to medium size that 
superficially resemble one another. Many of 
these, after varied systematic placement, have 
come to rest, somewhat uneasily, in the catch- 
all percoid family Trichonotidae (cf. Schultz, 
1943: 261). An investigation of the osteology 
of one of these genera, Kraemeria , showed it 
to be a gobioid. Comparison with Smith’s 
(1951) account of Paragobioides copleyi indi- 
cated that it, too, was a gobioid. Smith erected 
for the single genus Paragobioides the family 
Paragobioididae, which, however, he places 
near the percoid families Ammodytidae and 
Trichonotidae. Dr. George Myers called to 
my attention several years ago the resemblance 
between P. copleyi and the supposedly blen- 
nioid family Microdesmidae. Dr. L. P. Schultz 
has been kind enough to turn over to me 
two paratypes of Microdesmus multiradiatus for 
dissection. These, too, prove to be members 
of the perciform suborder Gobioidei. 
The main purpose of the present paper is 
to place the genera Kraemeria and Microdesmus 
securely among the gobioid fishes. This has 
not been difficult, for osteologically the gobi- 
oids exhibit many distinguishing characters. 
A glance at the branchiostegal ray structure, 
the suspensorium, or even the caudal skeleton 
1 Contribution No. 65. Hawaii Marine Laboratory. 
2 Department of Zoology and Entomology, Uni- 
versity of Hawaii. Manuscript received March 3, 1954. 
would seem sufficient to determine whether 
or not a fish is a member of the suborder 
Gobioidei. Indeed, the gobioids have often 
been treated as a separate order from the Per- 
ciformes, e.g., by Jordan (1923), Regan 
(1936), Smith (1949), and Koumans (in 
Weber and de Beaufort, 1953). On the other 
hand Berg (1940), Schultz (1948), and others 
consider the gobioids as a suborder of the 
Perciformes. I have no strong personal pref- 
erence on the matter and assign the gobioids 
a subordinal status in this paper principally 
as a matter of conservatism. 
Having brought Microdesmus and Kraemeria 
into the Gobioidei, the question arises as to 
the status of these two genera within the 
suborder. To aid in determining these points, 
several gobioids of the most divergent types 
available have been skeletonized. As there 
appears to have been very little comparative 
osteological work done on the gobioid fishes, 
these skeletons are reported on in some detail. 
The species skeletonized are as follows: 
Microdesmus multiradiatus , Panama, formerly 
U.S.N.M. 85766 
Kraemeria samoensis , Marshall Islands 
Eleotris sandwicensis , Hawaiian Islands 
Ptereleotris microlepis , Marshall Islands 
Eviota epiphanes , Hawaiian Islands 
Gobiodon rivulatus , Marshall Islands 
Kelloggella oligolepis , Hawaiian Islands 
Awaous stamineus , Hawaiian Islands 
The classification of these species, except 
for Microdesmus which has always been con- 
158 
