Fig. 479.—Blind Brotula. Lucifuga subterranea (Poey), showing viviparous habit. Joignan Cave, Pinar del Rio, Cuba. (Photograph by Dr. Eigenmann.)
The Bregmacerotidæ are small fishes, closely related to the Brotulids, having the hypercoracoid perforate, but with several minor peculiarities, the first ray of the dorsal being free and much elongate. They live near the surface in the open sea. Bregmaceros macclellandi is widely diffused in the Pacific.
Ateleopodidæ.—The small family of Ateleopodidæ includes long-bodied, deep-water fishes of the Pacific, resembling Macrourus, but with smooth scales. The group has the coracoids as in Brotulidæ, and the actinosts are united in an undivided plate. Ateleopus japonicus is the species taken in Japan.
Suborder Haplodoci.—We may here place the peculiar family of Batrachoididæ, or toadfishes. It constitutes the suborder of Haplodoci (ἁπλόος, simple; δόκος, shaft) from the simple form of the post-temporal. This order is characterized by the undivided post-temporal bone and by the reduction of the gill-arches to three. A second bone behind the post-temporal connects the shoulder-girdle above to the vertebral column. The coracoid bones are more or less elongate, suggesting the arm seen in pediculate fishes.
The single family has the general form of the Cottidæ, the body robust, with large head, large mouth, strong teeth, and short spinous dorsal fin. The shoulder-girdle and its structures differ little from the blennioid type. There are no pseudobranchiæ and the tail is homocercal. The species are relatively few, chiefly confined to the warm seas and mostly American, none being found in Europe or Asia. Some of them ascend rivers, and all are carnivorous and voracious. None are valued as food, being coarse-grained in flesh. The group is probably nearest allied to the Trachinidæ or Uranoscopidæ.
Fig. 480.—Leopard Toadfish, Opsanus pardus (Goode & Bean). Pensacola.
Opsanus tau, the common toadfish, or oyster-fish, of our Atlantic coast, is very common in rocky places, the young clinging to stones by a sucking-disk on the belly, a structure which is early lost. It reaches a length of about fifteen inches. Opsanus pardus, the leopard toadfish, or sapo, of the Gulf coast, lives in deeper water and is prettily marked with dark-brown spots on a light yellowish ground.
In Opsanus the body is naked and there is a large foramen, or mucous pore, in the axil of the pectoral. In the Marcgravia cryptocentra, a large Brazilian toadfish, this foramen is absent. In Batrachoides, a South American genus, the body is covered with cycloid scales. Batrachoides surinamensis is a common species of the West Indies. Batrachoides pacifici occurs at Panama. The genus Porichthys is remarkable for the development of series of mucous pores and luminous spots in several different lateral lines which cover the body. These luminous spots are quite unlike those found in the lantern-fishes (Myctophidæ) and other Iniomi. Their structure has been worked out in detail by Dr. Charles Wilson Greene, a summary of whose conclusions are given on page 191, Vol. I.
The common midshipman, or singing fish, of the coast of California is Porichthys notatus. This species, named midshipman from its rows of shining spots like brass buttons, is found among rocks and kelp and makes a peculiar quivering or humming noise with its large air-bladder.