enchelycephali

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. A group of apodal teleostean fishes, containing the true eels and congers, as distinguished from the murænoids, etc., which form the group Colocephali. The technical characters are the absence of a precoracoid arch and symplectic bone, in connection with a developed preoperculum and opercular bones. In Cope's system the group is an order of physostomous fishes; in Gill's, a suborder of Apodes.