ABSTRACT
Research on the functional morphology of feeding in fishes has produced a large body of work that characterizes general features of the musculoskeletal and mechanical mechanisms used during feeding behaviours (e.g. Alexander, 1967; Bellwood and Choat, 1990; Gillis and Lauder, 1995; Lauder, 1985; Motta, 1984; Muller et al., 1982; Osse and Muller, 1980; Wainwright and Turingan, 1993; Westneat, 1990). Workers have identified elements of skull structure, neuromuscular patterns and key hydrody-namic features that are widespread among fishes and these insights have provided the basis for our general understanding of the complex functional system that fishes employ during feeding behaviour (Barel, 1983; Lauder, 1985; Liem, 1979). However, among the roughly 25 000 living fish species there is great diversity in patterns of prey use, foraging behaviour, prey capture behaviour, prey capture abilities and design of the feeding mechanism (Motta, 1984; Sanderson and Wassersug, 1993; Wainwright and Richard, 1995a; Westneat, 1994) and efforts have been made to identify principles of how these aspects of fish feeding biology are interrelated.
