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Based on pictures, it seems to me that a vast majority of fish species that have scales do NOT have scales on their heads.

Is that fact true?

To make this properly answerable:

  • lets' define a "majority" as >70% of fish species. But frankly, I'm more interested in actual numerical answer than whether it passes some arbitrary threshold or not.

  • The universe which I'm interested in measuring the percentage are fish species that have "normal" (Cycloid and ctenoid is the technical term, I believe?) scales on their bodies.

    If that's not specific enough, you can restrict the universe to species in Actinopterygii (ray-finned) that have scales.

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Shouldn't a majority be 50% + 1? Also are you referring to species or to total numbers? – kmm♦ Mar 12 '12 at 1:33
@Kevin - species, as the first bullet point notes. As far as 70% vs 50%+, the question came out of an argument, for which mere 50%+ would not be a convincing enough number, whereas 70% would. And without a specific number, this would be a bad SE question (too vague) – DVK Mar 12 '12 at 1:49
@DVK: there is really no argument that 50%+1 > 50%-1, hence it is the majority. But I'm just nitpicking. – nico Jun 6 at 21:39

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