Gobioid Fishes — Gosline 
165 
actly (. Awaous , Kelloggella, Eviota , Gobiodon , 
Kraemeria ) one soft dorsal (or anal) ray per 
vertebra in the region occupied by these fins. 
Ptereleotris differs rather sharply from the fore- 
going genera in having two or three soft rays 
per vertebra. 
All of the genera examined except Micro- 
desmus have a separate spinous dorsal of five 
or six soft spines, the last of which is some- 
what separated from the others; the inter- 
neural of the first spine extends between the 
3rd and 4th neural arches and the last be- 
tween the 7th and 8th neural arches. In 
Microdesmus the dorsal is a single undiffer- 
entiated fin the first interneural of which lies 
between the 4th and 5th vertebra. 
The number of principal caudal rays is in- 
determinable in several of the species in- 
vestigated. 
Fig. 7. Caudal skeleton of three gobioids {a, 
Ptereleotris ; b, Kraemeria ; c, Kelloggella) , of two percoids 
(d, Crystallodytes cookei (Trichonotidae); e, Ammodytes 
tobianus ), and of a blennioid (/, Istiblennius gibbifrons 
(Blenniidae) ). 
The pectoral fin is more or less rounded in 
all of these species. The number of pectoral 
rays is 12 in Microdesmus and only 8 in 
Kraemeria. The low number of pectoral rays 
in Kraemeria is probably correlated with the 
degeneration of the pectoral girdle in this 
fish. 
The pelvic fins of Eleotris, Ptereleotris , Eviota , 
Kraemeria , and Microdesmus are separate. 
Those of Awaous , Gobiodon , and Kelloggella 
are fused. There are five soft rays in the pelvic 
fins of all except Eviota, which has four, and 
Microdesmus , which appears to have only three 
soft rays. 
RELATIONSHIPS 
I believe there can be no question regarding 
the allocation of Microdesmus and Kraemeria 
to the gobioid fishes. Both of these genera 
agree with most of the characters by which 
the gobioid fishes have been and can be 
defined: the absence of parietals from the 
skull and the peculiarities in the suspensorium, 
hyoid arch, and caudal skeleton. In all these 
features Microdesmus and Kraemeria disagree 
with both the blennioid and the trichonotid 
fishes. 
By contrast the chief features by which these 
two genera can be and have been separated 
from the gobioid fishes are as follows. 
In Kraemeria the gill openings extend 
rather far forward, but they also do in the 
gobioids Glossogobius , Chaenogobius, and Trim- 
ma (Schultz, 1943: 223, 248). The epiotics 
meet below the supraoccipital, but they also 
do in Kelloggella as noted above. The opis- 
thotics are absent, but Te Winkel has been 
unable to find opisthotics in Mistichthys and 
I have been unable to find them in Kelloggella. 
The lower fork of the posttemporal is lacking, 
but it also is in Kelloggella. Finally, the pectoral 
girdle and fin are greatly reduced, but in this 
Kraemeria merely shows a terminal stage in a 
reduction demonstrated in other gobioids. 
Microdesmus differs from the typical gobi- 
oids chiefly in the great elongation of the 
