Author: Gill, 1864
Diagnostic Features:
Anterior nasal flaps very short, not expanded into barbels; snout moderately long, bulbously conical, length about 2/5 of head length and less than distance from mouth to pectoral origins; gill openings very small, uniformly broad; lips thin, not fringed, pleated or suctorial; teeth strongly different in upper and lower jaws, uppers small, with narrow, acute, erect cusps and no cusplets, not bladelike, lowers much larger, bladelike, interlocked, with a high, broad, nearly erect cusp and distal blade, edges not serrated; tooth rows 21/19-23. Both dorsal fins spineless; first dorsal origin far behind free rear tips of pectoral fins, insertion well ahead of pelvic origins but much closer to pelvic bases than pectorals; second dorsal fin much larger than first, with its base about 4 times as long as base of tiny first dorsal; origin of second dorsal over rear end of pelvic bases; pectoral fins with short, broadly rounded free rear tips and inner margins, not expanded and acute or lobate; caudal fin nearly symmetrical, paddle-shaped, with short, strong upper lobe and long lower lobe, subterminal notch well-developed. No precaudal pits but with low lateral keels on caudal peduncle, no midventral keel. Dermal denticles flat and blocklike, not pedicellate, no posterior cusps on flat, depressed crowns. Cloaca normal, not expanded as a luminous gland. Colour blackish with conspicuously light-edged fins.