Mediterranean; a specimen of which was taken by Dr. Turton from the back of a Cod at Swansea, in the year 1806. The coronal disk in this
species contains about eighteen pairs of plates; the fins are leathery, the caudal forked. The body is of a dusky hue, darker on the upper parts and paler below.
The natives of Hispaniola and Jamaica are described by the early Spanish writers as in the habit of using a species of this genus in fishing. The fisherman, carrying the Remora out in his canoe, attached around its tail a slender line of great length, and threw it overboard. The instinct of the Remora impelled it to fasten on any fish that chanced to swim by, when the owner hauling upon the line, gradually drew in both fishes, the hold of the sucker pertinaciously retaining the prey in spite of all its efforts to escape. From some observations of our own on the habits of a large West Indian species, we are inclined to believe this account, though we do not know that the device is at present employed. At Mozambique, an oriental species is said to be used in exactly the same manner for the capture of Turtle sleeping at the surface.
