The Tarpons
BODY elongate, more or less compressed, covered with silvery cycloid scales; head naked; mouth broad, terminal, the lower jaw prominent; premaxillaries not protractile, short, the maxillaries forming the lateral margins of the upper jaw; an elongate bony plate between the branches of the lower jaw; eye large, with an adipose eyelid; bands of villiform teeth in each jaw and on vomer, palatines, pterygoids, tongue, and base of skull; no large teeth; opercular bones thin, with expanded membranous borders; a scaly occipital collar; gill-membranes entirely separate, free from the isthmus; branchiostegals numerous (20 to 35); gillrakers long and slender; belly not keeled nor serrated, rather broad and covered with ordinary scales; lateral line present; dorsal fin inserted over or slightly behind the ventrals; caudal fin forked; no adipose fin; dorsal and anal depressible into a sheath of scales; pectorals and ventrals each with a very long accessory scale; pyloric coeca numerous.
