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The Basses, Crappies and Sunfishes.

BODY more or less shortened and compressed, the regions above and below the axis of the body nearly equally developed and corresponding to each other; head compressed; mouth terminal, large or small; teeth in villiform bands, the outer slightly enlarged, no canines; teeth present on the premaxillaries, lower jaw, vomer, usually on the palatines, and sometimes on the tongue, pterygoids and hyoid; premaxillaries protractile; maxillary with a supplemental bone in the large-mouthed species, sometimes minute or obsolete; preopercle entire or somewhat serrate; opercle ending in 2 flat points or prolonged in a black flap at the angle; gills 4, a slit behind the last; pseudobranchiae small; gill-membranes separate, free from the isthmus; branchiostegals 6, rarely 7; gillrakers variously formed, armed with small teeth; lower pharyngeal bones separate, their teeth conic or sometimes paved; cheek and opercles scaly; body fully scaled, the scales usually not strongly ctenoid, rarely cycloid; lateral line present, usually complete; dorsal fins confluent, the spines 6 to 13, depressible in a shallow groove; anal spines 3 to 9; intestine short; pyloric coeca 5 to 10. Colour, usually brilliant, chiefly greenish; sexes similar; changes with age often great.