Proceedings of the United States National Museum SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, D.C. Volume 124 1968 Number 3643 Systematics and Distribution of the Monotypic Indo-Pacific Blenniid Fish Genus Atrosalarias By Victor G. Springer and William F. Smith-Vaniz Division of Fishes Our attention was first called to the possibility that a systematic problem might exist within the monotypic blenniid genus Atrosalarias because Chapman (1951) had reported that the dorsal fin had 10 spines and Smith (1959) had reported that it had 11 spines. Our purposes here are to redefine Atrosalarias and to discuss the meristic variation and geographic distribution of the genus. We have attempted to examine all extant material and to give a complete synonymy at least through 1964 (three references, each marked with an asterisk, were not seen). The synonymy is not given separately for each of the two subspecies that we recognize under A. juscus because several authors refer to material that comprise both subspecies or because it was impossible to determine which of the two subspecies the authors were considering. Of the five nominal species referable to Atrosalarias, four are A. juscus juscus. Salarias holomelas is considered a subspecies, A. juscus holomelas. We wish to thank the following institutions and personnel for making available to us the facilities of their collections (abbreviations are those used in the material list) : Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP), J. E. Bohlke; Australian Museum, Sydney 1
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