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HENRY W. FOWLER
Family Plotosidae.
The Eel-pout Cats.
Body elongated, with long tapering tail. Head small. Mouth part- ly terminal. Conic teeth in jaws, sometimes absent above, mixed with molar like ones below. Teeth on vomer molar like or conical and in patch or band. Pair of maxillary, mandibular and mental barbels, besides lateral fold at corner of mouth may be extended as short barbel like point. Nostrils remote from each other, front ones generally tubular, each hind one as slit behind nasal barbel. Opercle present. Gill opening wide, membranes not confluent with isthmus or only narrowly united. Branchiostegals 9 to 12. Air bladder not enclosed in bone. First dorsal short, with spine in front and second fin long and confluent with caudal and anal. No adipose dorsal. Pectoral with rather weak or strongly denticulated spine. Ventral rays 10 to 16.
Sea catfishes, sometimes of large size, found in the warm regions of the Indo-Pacific. Most genera with the curious dendritic or arborescent ap- The function of this pendage projecting from a depression behind the vent.
organ seems unexplained. "Its stalk when traced through the skin is found to have a tendinous connection with the basal process of the last abdominal vertebra, so that apparently it can be retracted. Between this appendage and the vent is a conical papilla bearing the urinary openings" (Barnard).
PLOTOSUS Lacépède. Eel-pout Cats.
Plotosus Lacépède, Hist. Nat. Poiss., vol. 5, 1803, p. 130. Platystacus anguillaris Bloch, monotypic.
Type
Snout
Body thick in front, tail compressed. Head depressed. rounded in front. Eyes small, not covered by skin, borders free. Mouth transverse. Lips thick, with papillae or small laminated folds. One pair of maxillary barbels. Front nostril in front border of upper lip, directed upward and forward. Gill membranes very narrow, united with isthmus. Branchiostegals 11 to 13. Entire head and fin spines covered by soft skin. Second dorsal origin above and behind ventral. Ventral rays 12 to 14. Dendritic organ behind vent.
H.W.F
Figure 1. Plotosus anguillaris (Bloch).
Plotosus anguillaris (Bloch). Figure 1.
Yen ting, Gan ting (cottage nail), Om ting.
Platystacus anguillaris Bloch, Naturg. Ausl. Fische, vol. 8, 1794, p. pl. 373, fig. 1. No locality (M. John collection; evidently Tranquebar).
61,
The Hong Kong Naturalist.
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