160 
pedicel as a strut that nearly meets its fellow 
from the other side in front of the premaxil- 
laries. The lower jaw seems to show little 
variation in the gobioids examined. 
Suspensorium 
Regan (1911: 730, 731) uses the shape of 
the palatine as a character for differentiating 
between the Eleotridae and the Gobiidae. For 
the Eleotridae he states, "Palatine with an 
ascending stem articulating directly with a 
lateral ethmoid apophysis behind the origin 
of the maxillary process," and for the Go- 
biidae, "Palatine T-shaped with a posterior 
process for articulation with the lateral eth- 
moid." In this feature, Eleotris sandwicensis 
agrees well with Regan’s first statement and 
with his figure of E. marmorata (1911: 730, 
fig. 1). Aivaous (Fig. 2c) shows distinctly the 
gobiid palatine as described by Regan though 
it can hardly be called T-shaped. However, 
the palatines of Ptereleotris (Fig. 2a), Eleotris , 
and Gobiodon (Fig. 2b) appear to be more or 
less intermediate between the eleotrid and 
gobiid types. Indeed, one strongly suspects 
that Regan’s palatine differentiation is not as 
distinctive as it appears. In Microdesmus (Fig. 
2d) the palatine is a double-headed bone of 
peculiar shape which seems to be nearer that 
of Awaous than Eleotris. In Kraemeria (Fig. 1) 
the palatine does not seem to articulate di- 
rectly with the skull at all, almost certainly 
not with the lateral ethmoid, a small bone 
lying loose in the flesh. 
In Eleotris the palatopterygoid strut is more 
or less fused to the quadrate in typical percoid 
fashion (as shown in Regan, 1911: 730, fig. 1) 
although the mesopterygoid is reduced. In 
Awaous and Gobiodon , however, the palato- 
pterygoid strut has become loosely and rnov- 
ably articulated with the quadrate and is thus 
a more or less independent unit from the rest 
of the suspensorium. In addition, the meso- 
pterygoid has dropped out completely and 
the palatine extends backward to the very 
base of the strut. In all these features Krae- 
meria (Fig. 3 a) and Microdesmus (Fig. 3 b) 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. IX, April, 1955 
Fig. 2. Right palatopterygoid strut, from outside, 
of: a, Ptereleotris ; b, Gobiodon', c, Awaous ; d, Micro- 
desmus. ms, mesopterygoid; pa, palatine; pg, pterygoid. 
resemble the gobiids rather than the eleotrids 
examined. There can be no doubt that the 
eleotrid type of palatopterygoid structure rep- 
resents the least departure from the basic 
percoid suspensorium. 
The most peculiar feature of the gobioid 
suspensorium is that the rear portion, between 
the articular and the cranium, instead of com- 
prising the usual single hyomandibular-meta- 
pterygoid-quadrate strut, is composed of two 
struts with a large non-osseus area between 
