| Main Ref. | Freyhof, J. and F. Herder, 2002 |
| Appearance refers to | |
| Bones in OsteoBase |
| Specialized organs | |
| Different appearance | |
| Different colors | |
| Remarks | Males have longer soft caudal, dorsal and anal-fin rays, and grow larger than females (Ref. 42924). |
| Striking features | none |
| Body shape lateral | short and / or deep |
| Cross section | |
| Dorsal head profile | |
| Type of eyes | |
| Type of mouth/snout | |
| Position of mouth | |
| Type of scales | |
| Diagnosis |
Differs from its congeners by the following combination of characters: caudal fin forked; opercular spot pale or missing; body without dark bars or with 4-12 faint and inconspicuous dark bars on pale brown to dark greyish background in preserved and live specimens; top of head and predorsal body without dark spots or saddle-like blotches; posterior tip or margin of scales on head and body conspicuously darker than scales; distal part of first soft pelvic-fin ray red in life; spots and bars on dorsal and caudal-fin membranes black; posterior dorsal-fin membranes and caudal-fin membranes blue in life; filamentous caudal-fin rays with white or black posterior extremity (Ref. 42924). |
| Ease of Identification |
| Lateral Lines | Interrupted: No |
| Scales on lateral line | 28 - 31 |
| Pored lateral line scales | |
| Scales in lateral series | |
| Scale rows above lateral line | |
| Scale rows below lateral line | |
| Scales around caudal peduncle | 17 - 19 |
| Barbels | |
| Gill clefts (sharks/rays only) | |
| Gill rakers | |
| on lower limb | |
| on upper limb | |
| total | 15 - 17 |
| Vertebrae | |
| preanal | |
| total | 28 - 30 |
| Attributes | |
| Fins number | 1 |
| Finlets No. | Dorsal 0 - 0 |
| Ventral 0 - 0 | |
| Spines total | 11 - 15 |
| Soft-rays total | 4 - 9 |
| Adipose fin | absent |
| Attributes | forked |
| Fins number | |
| Spines total | 17 |
| Soft-rays total | 11 - 14 |
| Pectoral | Attributes more or less normal |
| Spines | |
| Soft-rays 9 - 12 | |
| Pelvics | Attributes rays very elongated |
| Position thoracic before origin of D1 | |
| Spines | |
| Soft-rays |