Owstonia sp. 3

(Figures 20 D, 90)

Material examined. USNM 307399, 13.2 mm SL, C&S, Lifou Island, 20°20'S, 167°21'E, 31 Mar. 1973.

Description. Lateral line undeveloped at this small size. Dorsal fin IV, 21; anal fin II, 13; vertebrae 11 + 17; anal-fin pterygiophores anterior to 1st haemal spine 3. Fourmanoir (1976:54) erroneously recorded a count of X, 14 for the anal fin. This specimen has an enlarged, plate-like posttemporal and preopercle (Fig. 20 D), like all other known postflexion Owstonia larvae.

Comparisons. Meristic values of this larval specimen do not match any other species (see Table 2). Fourmanoir's (1976) illustration of the specimen is here reproduced as Fig. 90. He questionably identified the specimen as the Indian Ocean Owstonia simotera (Smith), presumably because it shares with that species a relatively large number of cheek scale rows; prior to clearing and staining the specimen we independently confirmed that it has at least 8 rows of cheek scales. Cheek scale row counts of 8 or more are known to occur only in two other species, Owstonia kamoharai and O. simotera . In addition to the unlikely possibility of conspecificity given the known distributions (Fig. 27) of O. simotera and O. kamoharai, the Lifou larva differs from both of these species in having more dorsal-fin spines IV (vs. III), anal-fin spines II (vs. I) and anal-fin pterygiophores anterior to 1st haemal spine 3 (vs. 2).