Fig. 225.—Petroscirtes bankieri, from Hong-Kong.
Petroscirtes.—Body moderately elongate, naked. Snout generally short. A single dorsal fin; ventrals composed of two or three rays. Cleft of the mouth narrow; a single series of immovable teeth in the jaws; a strong curved canine tooth behind this series, that of the lower jaw much stronger than that of the upper. Head sometimes with tentacles. Gill-opening reduced to a small fissure above the root of the pectoral.
Thirty species, from the tropical Indo-Pacific, of small size.
Fig. 226.—Dentition of the same, enlarged.
Salarias.—Body moderately elongate, naked; snout short, with transverse cleft of the mouth; a series of numerous small teeth in the jaws, implanted in the gum and movable; generally a curved canine tooth on each side of the lower jaw, behind the series of small teeth. Dorsal fin continuous, sometimes divided into two portions by a more or less deep notch without a detached anterior part. Ventral fins with two or three rays. A tentacle above the orbit. Gill-openings wide.
Sixty species are known from the tropical zone, extending northwards to Madeira, southwards to Chile and Tasmania. In certain individuals of some of the species a longitudinal cutaneous crest is developed; all young individuals lack it, and in some other species it is invariably absent. Singularly enough this crest is not always a sexual character, as one might have supposed from analogy, but in some species at least it is developed in both sexes. Mature males, however, have generally higher dorsal fins and a more intense and variegated coloration than females and immature males, as is also the case in Blennius.
Clinus.—Body moderately elongate, covered with small scales; snout rather short; a narrow band or series of small teeth in the jaws and on the palate. Dorsal fin formed by numerous spines and a few soft rays, without a detached anterior portion; anal spines two. Ventrals with two or three rays. A tentacle above the orbit. Gill-opening wide.
Thirty species, from the coasts of tropical America and the southern temperate zone. Three other genera are closely allied to Clinus, viz. Cristiceps and Cremnobates, in which the three anterior dorsal spines are detached from the rest of the fin; and Tripterygium, with three distinct dorsal fins, of which the two anterior are spinous. The species of these genera are as numerous as those of Clinus, occurring in many parts of tropical seas, in the Mediterranean, and being especially well represented in South Australia and New Zealand.