B. With a single lateral line: Opisthognathus, Latilus, Caulolatilus, Lopholatilus, Malacanthus, Bathymaster, Rathbunella.
Fig. 404.—Tile-Fish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps). × ¼. (After Goode and Bean.)
Marine, mostly of small size, inhabiting the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. About 30 species. One of the largest and best-known members of this family is the Tile-Fish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps), living upon the bottom of what is known as the Gulf Stream slope, off the coast of New England, where it was first observed in 1879. Here the water is normally comparatively warm, coming as it does from the superheated region of the Gulf of Mexico. During a series of unusually severe gales in 1882, this mass of water was pushed aside, as it were, and replaced by colder water. As a result, millions and millions of these fishes were killed, and their dead bodies literally covered the surface of the sea for hundreds of square miles. It was feared that the Tile-Fish was exterminated; this was not so, however, and the fish has reappeared in tolerable abundance within the last few years.
Fam. 13. Cepolidae.—Agree in essential characters with the preceding, but body band-like with very numerous vertebrae (15 + 54), and very elongate dorsal and anal fins formed of soft rays, of which all except the first three dorsal and the first anal are articulated and branched.
Although these fishes have hitherto been placed near the Blenniidae, the Gobiidae, or the Trachypteridae, they are nothing but extremely elongate Perches, and they stand in the same relation to the Serranidae as the Trichiuridae to the Carangidae and Scombridae. They hardly deserve to rank as a family distinct from the Pseudochromididae.
Fig. 405.—Cepola rubescens. × ½. (After Cuvier and Valenciennes.)
Two genera, Cepola and Acanthocepola, with 10 species, from the Mediterranean and North-Eastern Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Western Pacific. The Band-Fish (Cepola rubescens), which is common in the Mediterranean, is sometimes found on the British coasts; it grows to a foot and a half in length, and is remarkable for its bright red colour.
Fam. 14. Hoplognathidae.—Characters of Serranidae, but teeth fused to form a beak as in Tetrodon; palate toothless.