Moderately stout body; gut to about midbody, slightly sigmoid; head moderate in size, rounded; snout blunt in postflexion stage; eye elliptical, wider after preflexion stage; lunate choroid tissue; postanal series coalesces to 1 melanophore; Br2 and Dn photophores forming at about 4.0 mm; PO5 in 6 mm larvae; PVO1 and upper Op in 7 mm larvae; PO1; VO1, and AO1 in 8 mm larvae.
Pigmentation:
Preflexion: by 2.5 mm, ventrolateral pair of elongate dashes at cleithrum; dorsolateral pair on terminal gut section, 2 pairs on lateral midgut, and 5-9 in postanal median ventral series; by 3.0 mm, 1 on lower jaw tip; by 4.0 mm, some have only a single lateral gut pair and postanal series coalesced to 1.
Flexion: patch forms above bladder and cleithral dash angles dorsad along cleithrum; by about 5.0 mm, anterior to pectoral fin base, anterior to each nostril, in ceratohyal region, embedded on ventrolateral surface of hindbrain, and 1 to several in vertical series on posterior edge of hypurals.
Postflexion: by about 6.0 mm, a series on anal fin base (in some); by about 7.7 mm, 1 medially above cerebellum; by 8.0 mm, a series embedded along haemal spines.
Sequence of fin development: caudal, pectorals and anal, dorsal, pelvics. |