Neobythitoides Nielsen & Machida, 2006, n. gen.

Neobythitoides n. gen.

(Figs. 1-4)

Type species. Neobythitoides serratus n. sp.

Remarks

The lack of a chin-barbel, the presence of cycloid scales and the posterior position of the ventral-fins place this ophidiid genus in the subfamily Neobythitinae, which according to Nielsen et al. (1999) contains 38 genera. Table 1 shows a comparison between the genera that have the following characters in common: A well developed opercular spine, two median basibranchial tooth patches, two ventral-fin rays placed below preopercle, more than six developed gill rakers, all pectoral-fin rays joined and one lateral line. The table indicates that Neobythitoides is most similar to Neobythites, which also is supported by overall similarity. However, a phylogenetic analysis has not been performed.

Diagnosis and similarity

Neobythitoides is defined by the following combination of characters (those of Neobythites are mentioned in brackets):

Posterior margin of preopercle with 10-15 soft serrations (Fig. 2) and no spines (margin without serration and with 0-3 spines), snout almost twice as long as horizontal diameter of pigmented eye (snout equal to or slightly longer than eye), horizontal eye window 2.5-2.7 % SL (3.7-6.0 % SL), two median and in the holotype (Fig. 3) also a pair of small basibranchial tooth patches (two median basibranchial tooth patches), 10-11 developed rakers on anterior gill arch (6-34), sagittal otolith (Fig. 4) with undivided sulcus (sulcus divided into a caudal and osteal part - sagittae from 49 out of 50 known Neobythites species were examined) and sulcus-length in percentage of sagitta-length 50-55 (65-85).

Etymology

Neobythitoides refers to the resemblance to the genus Neobythites.