Home › Volumes › Fishes

The Snappers

BODY oblong, more or less elevated, covered with moderate-size, adherent scales, which are more or less strongly ctenoid or almost cycloid; lateral line well developed, concurrent with the back, not extending on the caudal fin; head large, the crests on the skull usually largely developed; mouth moderate or large, usually terminal, low and horizontal; premaxillaries moderately protractile; maxillary long, without supplemental bone; teeth various, unequal and sharp, never incisor-like, some of them sometimes molar; vomer and palatines usually with villiform teeth, but these sometimes molar, sometimes very small, sometimes wanting; pseudobranchiae large; gillrakers moderate or long; gill-membranes separate, free from the isthmus; no spines on opercle; side of head usually scaly; dorsal fin usually single, continuous, or deeply notched, sometimes divided into 2 fins, the spines usually strong, depressible in a groove, the spines heteracanthous, i.e., alternating, the one stronger on the right side, the next on the left; anal fin similar to soft dorsal; caudal usually more or less concave; air-bladder present, usually simple; pyloric coeca few; intestine short.