PROC. BIOL. SOC. WASH. 94(1), 1981, pp. 52-66 COMMENTS ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF BALISTOID FISHES (TETRAODONTIFORMES), WITH NOTES ON THE TRIODONTID PELVIS James C. Tyler and Keiichi Matsuura Abstract. — Two workers recently have independently described the os-teological structure of cleared and stained specimens of a large number of genera and species (ca. half the same) of fishes of the families Balistidae and Monacanthidae (the superfamily Balistoidea, Tetraodontiformes). The phy-logenetic and classificatory conclusions reached by Matsuura (1979) and Tyler (1980) are rather similar, as are the majority of their osteological observations. The few differences (ca. 5%) in their anatomical reports are discussed herein. Introduction Matsuura (1979) published a detailed osteologically based phylogenetic study of the balistoid fishes (Balistidae, triggerfishes; Monacanthidae, file-fishes) utilizing cleared and alizarin stained specimens of 15 species repre-senting 1 1 genera of balistids and 28 species representing 22 genera of mon-acanthids. In his similarly based study Tyler (1980) used 21 species representing 11 genera of balistids and 32 species representing 17 genera of monacanthids. Matsuura' s coverage includes 57% of the balistids and 44% of the monacanthids treated by Tyler, while Tyler's coverage includes 80% of the balistids and 50% of the monacanthids treated by Matsuura. Thus, of the total of 70 species and 36 genera of balistoids treated by either Matsuura or Tyler, 26 species and 25 genera are shared between the two (Table 1). The species studied by Matsuura are mainly from Japan and the western Pacific, while those used by Tyler are of more worldwide localities. Since Matsuura and Tyler worked independently of one another, and are of somewhat different (although cross-fertilized) cultural schools of ichthy-ology, yet studied osteologically many of the same species and genera, an opportunity to test the degree of similarity of their materials and observa-tions presents itself. If one assumes that both researchers were careful in their observations and precise in their descriptions, then similar results can be presumed to be accurate in the vast majority of cases, for it is unlikely that two attentive workers would frequently commit the same observational error independently. Therefore, only the few differences in the osteological descriptions of Matsuura and Tyler need to be discussed to clarify or rectify these observations for the benefit of subsequent workers. The latter will
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