Division VI.—DISCOCEPHALI.
Highly aberrant Acanthopterygians with the anterior dorsal fin modified into a suctorial, transversely laminated oval disk[[733]] on the head, the skull being very much flattened and with simple basis cranii. The pectoral rays are inserted on the small, perforate, scapula and on four hour-glass-shaped pterygials, three of which are in contact with the coracoid. Ventrals thoracic.
Fam. 1. Echeneididae.—Maxillary slender, adnate to the upper surface of the praemaxillary; suborbital arch slender. Pectoral fin inserted high up; supraclavicle much reduced; ventral fin with one spine and five soft rays. Body elongate and covered with small scales; soft dorsal and anal fins elongate and opposed to each other. All the praecaudal vertebrae with very strong parapophyses, the anterior with diapophyses as well; ribs and epipleurals nearly equally developed, both inserted at the extremity of the parapophyses.
Fig. 421.—Remora brachyptera. (After Goode.) × ½.
In spite of a superficial external resemblance to the genus Elacate, the Sucking-Fish bear certainly no affinity to that genus nor to other Scombriformes, as first observed by Gill. They are probably derived from Perciformes, but from which family it is impossible to suggest. Three genera may be distinguished: Opisthomyzon, from the Upper Eocene of Switzerland, with a very small suctorial disk and 23 or 24 vertebrae; Echeneis, with large disk and 30 vertebrae; and Remora, distinguished from the second by a shorter body with only 27 vertebrae. These remarkable fishes, of which about 10 species are distinguished, are distributed all over the tropical and warm seas, and exceptionally carried as far north as the south coast of England. They feed on other fishes, and attach themselves by means of their cephalic sucker to boats or to sharks, turtles, cetaceans, and other large swift-swimming animals. On the East Coast of Africa they are employed by the natives for catching turtles, to the carapace of which they stick with extraordinary tenacity, being held by a line attached to a metal ring round the caudal peduncle.[[734]] The largest Sucking-fish grows to a length of three feet.
Division VII.—SCLEROPAREI.
Second suborbital bone more or less produced towards or ankylosed with the praeoperculum ("suborbital stay").[[735]] Ventral fins thoracic.
Fig. 422.—Skull of Ophiodon elongatus. sor, Suborbital stay.