Fig. 482.—Aspasma ciconiæ Jordan & Snyder. Wakanoura, Japan.
The body is formed much as in the toadfishes. The skin is naked and there is no spinous dorsal fin. The skeleton shows several peculiarities; there is no suborbital ring, the palatine arcade is reduced, as are the gill-arches, the opercle is reduced to a spine-like projection, and the vertebræ are numerous. The species are found in tide-pools in the warm seas, where they cling tightly to the rocks with their large ventral disks.
Several species of Lepadogaster and Mirbelia are found in the Mediterranean. Lepadogaster gouani is the best-known European species. Aspasma ciconiæ and minima occur about the rocks in the bays of Japan.
Fig. 483.—Clingfish, Caularchus mæandricus (Girard). Monterey, Cal.
Most of the West Indian species belong to Gobiesox, with entire teeth, and to Arbaciosa, with serrated teeth. Some of these species are deep crimson in color, but most of them are dull olive. Gobiesox virgatulus is common on the Gulf Coast. Caularchus mæandricus, a very large species, reaching a length of six inches, abounds along the coast of California. Other genera are found at the Cape of Good Hope, especially about New Zealand. Chorisochismus dentex, from the Cape of Good Hope, reaches the length of a foot.
CHAPTER XXX
OPISTHOMI AND ANACANTHINI
Order Opisthomi.—The order Opisthomi (ὄπισθη, behind; ὤμος, shoulder) is characterized by the general traits of the blennies and other elongate, spiny-rayed fishes, but the shoulder-girdle, as in the Apodes and the Heteromi, is inserted on the vertebral column well behind the skull.
The single family, Mastacembelidæ, is composed of eel-shaped fishes with a large mouth and projecting lower jaw, inhabiting the waters of India, Africa, and the East Indies. They are small in size and of no economic importance. The dorsal is long, with free spines in front and there are no ventral fins. Were these fins developed, they should in theory be jugular in position. There is no air-duct in Mastacembelus and it seems to be a true spiny-rayed fish, having no special relation to either Notacanthus or to the eels. Except for the separation of the shoulder-girdle from the skull, there seems to be no reason for separating them far from the Blennioid forms, and the resemblance to Notacanthus seems wholly fallacious.