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SHOVEL-NOSED STURGEON. "69 
Scaphirhynchus platyrhynchus, GIRARD (1858), U. S. Pac. R. R. Surv., x, 357, and of most 
authors. 
Scaphirhynchops platyrhynchus, JORDON (1878), Man. Vert. E. U.S., 2d. Ed., 346. 
Acipenser cataphractus, GRAY (1834), Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 122. 
Scaphirhynchus cataphractus, GUNTHER (1870), Cat. Fishes, Brit. Mus., viii, 345. 
Scaphirhynchus rafinesquii, HECKEL (1835), Ann. Wiener Museum, i, 71. 
Description —Body rather long and slender, tapering anteriorly into a depressed spade- 
shaped snout, and posteriorly into the long and slender tail, which is much depressed, 
considerably broader than deep, and from the dorsal fin backward completely encased 
in a coat of mail formed by the coalescence of the lateral series of scutes; shields all 
somewhat obcordate, the spine quite posterior and nearly horizontal; the edges of the 
scutes rough ; lateral scutes higher than long; anal fin almost entirely behind dorsal ; 
dorsal rays about 25 in number, dorsal series of shields of about 16 scutes; lateral series 
43; ventral series 11; color plain brownish. Length, one to eight feet (Kiriland). 
Habitat, Ohio Valley to the Upper Missouri, and southwest to the Rio Grande; not 
recorded from the Great Lakes. 
Diagnosis.—This species may be known at once from the other Stur- 
geons by the flattened tail, the surface of which is enterely bony. 
Habits.—This fish is common in the Ohio River, and some of its larger 
tributaries. It is taken in seines in considerable numbers, and is used 
for food, though it does not seem to be highly valued. Nothing dis- 
tinctive is on record of its habits which are probably essentially like 
those of the Lake Sturgeon. 
ORDER 4. GINGLYMODI. THE RHOMBOGANOIDS. 
Parietals in contact ; pterotic simple; symplectic present; mandible with coronoid, 
opercular, angnlar articular, and dentary bones; basis of cranium simple; third 
superior pharyngeal bone small, lyiug on fourth; upper basibyal wanting; maxillary 
subdivided; a preecoracoid arch; vetrebree opisthecelian; pectoral fins with meso- 
pterygium and five other basal elements; skeleton generally ossified ; precoracoid carti- 
laginous; one axial hyoid, and three basal branchihya!s; tail heterocercal; dorsal 
short, inserted far back; ventrals abdominal; pectorals inserted low; scales rhombic, 
enamelled ; air bladder cellular, partly functional. (Gigglumos, hinge ; odous, tooth.) 
This order includes but one family, the Gar Pikes or Lepidosteide. 
PAMILY IV. LEPIDOSTHIDA. THH GAR PIKES. 
Body elongate, covered with hard diamond-shaped enamelled scales, arranged in re- 
gular oblique series; head more or less elongate, the jaws depressed and produced, the 
upper jaws projecting somewhat beyond the lower ; mouth with the cleft rather narrow 
but very long; most of the margin of upper jaw formed by premaxillaries; each jaw 
with one or two series of very strong teeth, set vertically, between these are numerous 
smaller teeth; middle portion of each jaw with bands of fine rasp-like teeth, which 
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