Academy of Natural Sciences

Redescription of Gracila albomarginata (Fowler and Bean) and polleni (Bleeker) with Comments on the Generic Limits of Selected Indo-Pacif ic (Pisces: : Epinephelinae) Author(s): William F. Smith-Vaniz, G. David Johnson, John E. Randall Source: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. 140, No. 2 (1988), pp. 1-23 Published by: Academy of Natural Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4064934 Accessed: 02/06/2010 12:17

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STOR http: //www .j stor.org Plate I Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 140(2), 1-23,1988

Redescription of Gracila albomarginata (Fowler and Bean) and Cephalopholis polleni (Bleeker) with Comments on the Generic Limits of Selected Indo-Pacific Groupers (Pisces: Serranidae: Epinephelinae)

WILLIAM F. SMITH-VANIZ Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA 19103

G. DAVID JOHNSON Department ofVertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History Washington, DC 20560

JOHN E. RANDALL Bernice P. Bishop Museum Box 19000A, Honolulu, HI 96817

ABSTRACT.— Redescriptions, complete synonymies and new distribution records are given for Gracila albomarginata and Cephalopholis polleni; our generic classification of C. polleni con- tradicts that of recent authors who assigned the species to Gracila, which now becomes mono- typic. The utility and phylogenetic importance of selected characters are evaluated as the basis for continued recognition of the epinepheline genera Aethaloperca, Cephalopholis and Gracila. Scale morphology and neurocrania of several epinephelines are illustrated and compared. [Aethaloperca, Cephalopholis, Epinephelinae, fishes, Gracila, groupers, Indo-Pacific, osteol- ogy, scale morphology, Serranidae, systematics]

This study evolved as an outgrowth of our ef- ered to be closely related. Smith (1954) forts to determine the proper placement of recognized Aethaloperca Fowler (type Cephalopholis albomarginatus Fowler and species: Perca rogaa Forsskal) as a valid ge- Bean and polleni Bleeker within nus "closely related" to Cephalopholis Sch- the current generic classification of groupers neider (type species: C. argus Schneider). He (tribe Epinephelini). We have concentrated also assigned C. albomarginatus to Aethalo- our focus on Cephalopholis, Aethaloperca and perca, although it does not have a deep and Gracila, three poorly defined nominal genera compressed body, one of three characters he that several authors have uncritically consid- mentioned to distinguish