Comments on Basal Teleosts and Teleostean Phylogeny, by Gloria Arratia

For more than 20 years, Gloria Arratia has been a prolific contributor on Mesozoic fossil fishes and on the skeletal ontogeny and morphology of Recent teleosts. Often writing with her husband, Hans-Peter Schultze, she has produced (among much else) a notable series of papers on the caudal skeleton of Recent lower teleosts and on the palatoquadrate and urohyal (e.g., Arratia, 1991; Arratia and Schultze, 1991, 1992). Her most recent monograph (Arratia, 1997) covers Jurassic fossils representing eight genera (one of which is the Recent Elops), two of them new, and also describes the firstJurassic leptocephali or transforming leptocephali. As usual with Arratia's work, the descriptions of fossils are as complete as the specimens allow, and the illustrations are excellent.