-2-55-.- 
ijr* 
Family Gadidae 
**" 1 " — 
Body more or less elongate, tail moderate, coniform behind. 
Head large, bones mostly firm or cavernous by muciferous sensory cavities. 
Mouth large, terminal, more or less protractile. Mandibular barbel usually 
present. Teeth strong, small or villiform, in bands or uniserial in jaws. 
Vomer, palatines or pterygoids with or without teeth. Preopercle edge usually 
covered by skin of head. Suborbitals moderate. Gill openings wide, 
membranes separated or but slightly united, usually free from isthmus. Gills 
f 
4, slit behind fourth. Pseudobranchiae glandular or absent. Branchiostegals 
7. Air bladder usually well developed. Pyloric coeca numerous, sometimes 
» 
few or none. Scales small, cycloid. No spines, fin rays all. articulated. 
Dorsal extending along back, may form 1, 2 or 3 fins. Anal long, single or 
divided. Caudal distinct or confluent with dorsal and anal, symmetrical, 
homocercal, supported by neural and haemal spines of hind vertebrae and by 
basal bones like those supporting preceding dorsal and anal rays; rays of 
caudal above and below procurrent.' Pectoral pterygials 4, Ventrals jugular, 
joined to pubic bone, with 2 to 9 branched rays. 
Fishes chiefly of polar and temperate seas, mostly marine, some 
living in oceanic abysses. Many are important food fishes, 
* 
> 
Genus Algoa CasteInau 
Algoa CASTELNAU, M*m. Poiss. Afrique australe, p. 69, 1861. 
(Type Algoa viridis CASTELNAU, monotypic.) 
« 
