1325 
Order 
Body slender, compressed, tapers behind. Abdomen 
rounded. Head partly conic. Mouth inferior. Bones of jaws, 
palatines and pterygoids complete, normal. Teeth small, 
villiform. Preopercle entirely detached from susoensorium, 
/ 
Jk 
rudimentary, connects only with lower jaw. Opercle normally 
connected. Subopercle enlarged, partly replaces usual po¬ 
sition of preopercle, together with suborbital chain, which 
extended backward to opercular edge. Cranium with condyle 
confined to basioccipital. Gills 4, slit behind fourth. No. 
pseudobranchiae. Branchiostegals 14. Air vessel large, simple. 
Stomach coecal. Pyloric coeca in moderate number. Intestine 
short. Ovaries not closed. Scapular arch formed by prosca¬ 
pula, posterotemporal and posttemporal, latter discrete from 
side of cranium and impringing on supraocciptial. Hypercor¬ 
acoid and hypocoracoid plate like, foramen in upper edge of 
latter. No mesocroacoid. Vertebrae 60 or more, front ones 
separate. Actinosts normal. Scales small, deciduous. Lat- 
eral line present. Dorsal fin short, high. No.adipose fin. 
Anal extremely long, extends from vent to end of tail. No 
caudal fin. Pectoral placed high. Ventrals advanced. 
Deep sea fishes, included in the single family. 
