Genus: Cyttopsis, Dories, Red Slender Dory

CYTTOPSIS

DORIES

Body oval, depth > head length; head and body greatly compressed, chest wide & flat; head bones thin and soft; mouth large, oblique, upper jaw extremely protrusible, top jaw bone widely expanded at rear; jaws with a few minute conical teeth; dorsal fin VI-VII stiff spines, 24-30, with a deep notch, 1st spine immovable; anal fin I-II, 24-30, the spine sometimes minute and fused to the main skeleton; pectoral fin 13-14, much shorter than head or pelvic fins; pelvics 0, 9-10, origin before pectoral origin; tail fin rounded; scales minute, smooth to spiny; soft dorsal and anal fins with a bony ridge along each side of base; lower midline from pelvics to anus with large spiny bucklers.

A cosmopolitan genus with 2 species; one trans-Atlantic + Indo-W Pacific species in our area.