Selenoscopus turbisquamatus, a new genus and species of Uranoscopid fish from Japan and the Norfolk Ridge

Abstract

A new stargazer,Selenoscopus turbisquamatus, is described from 30 specimens from the Kyushu-Palau Ridge, the coasts of Kii Peninsula, Japan, and the Norfolk Ridge, northern Tasman Sea. The species appears to be most closely related to the genusUranoscopus in having two dorsal fins, a spinous dorsal fin consisting of feeble spines, a stout cleithral spine, an externally visible pelvic spur, two supracleithral spines, and no postcleithrum, but differs from it in having a smooth posterior margin of the gill flap, uniserial dentary teeth, random arrangement of body scales, no subopercular spine, an intervention of the pterosphenoid (=alisphenoid) between the frontal and the parasphenoid, and the first and second haemal spines depressed on the centra. A new genus,Selenoscopus, is therefore proposed, based on these characters.