7115

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7115
• Author: Beckman, W.
• Title: Editor
• USFW Year: Series
• USFW - Doc Type: 1952
• Copyright Material: YES

Rio Grande Mountain-sucker
Pantosteus plebeius (Baird and Girard)

~FONTANELLE
I CLOSED

Body rather stout, subfusiform; head comparatively large, 41,4-43,4 in
length; snout broad but relatively short, overhanging mouth by about diameter
of eye; mouth large, upper lip large, forming fleshy hood over mouth; median
indentation separated from margin of lower jaw by 4 or more rows of warts;
caudal peduncle slender; $Cales not much crowded anteriorly; scales moderate,
80-92 in lateral line, usually about 85.
Color, dark greenish-brown to blackish above, faintly mottled
with dusky on mid-dorsal and sides; lower portion yellowish to
white; a rather well defined reddish band along lateral line in breed-
ing season.
This sucker is' found in the Rio Grande drainage. Its life history
follows that' of the other species of Pantosteus.

. The HUmpMck Suckers

Genus Xyrauchen Eigenmann and Kirsch

Characters of this genus follow that of Catostomus except for the sharp-
. edged hump behind the occiput formed by the interneural bones.
A single species represents this genus in Color "00.

Humpback Sucker
X"jrauchen tallnus <Abbott)

HUMP

~

Body stout, compressed, head low, the profile ascending to the prominent
sharp-edged hump; mouth wide, inferior; upper lip with two rows of warts' lowe;
lip deeply incised; dorsal fin long and low, with concave edge, 14 to 16 rays;

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