VALIDATION OF THE USE OF CEPHALIC LATERAL-LINE PAPILLAE PATTERNS FOR POSTULATING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG GOBIOID GENERA

Although many of the characters typically used in fish taxonomy have become reduced or lost in the gobioid fishes, the lateral‐line system has been highly modified to produce well‐developed rows of cephalic lateral‐line papillae in most members of this group of teleost fishes. The validity of using papillae patterns as a taxonomic tool has been explored by comparing data for this and other character suites recorded for eight relatively unspecialized species that are considered to be representative of a group of 34 genera. The papillae patterns of the cephalic lateral‐line system and the major osteological and morphological characters of these species are thus described and then subjected to phenetic analyses, both on their own and in various combinations. The classifications generated by this approach are compared with classifications produced by descriptive taxonomy, using predominantly osteological characters, and by multivariate analyses of morphometric data. All three approaches yielded the same groupings and intra‐group relationships. The results presented in this paper thus show that papillae patterns can be used to hypothesize the relationships within the gobioid fishes. Copyright © 1992, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved