FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 72, NO. 2 



migrations of the zooplankton. The situation is 

 just the opposite for most of the other fishes which 

 share the same day depth range and have neither 

 upwardly directed eyes nor as pronounced a ven- 

 tral orientation of their light organs. The latter 

 fishes undertake more extensive vertical migra- 

 tions at night and encounter higher concentra- 

 tions of zooplankton and probably predators then 

 rather than during the day. 



The species which showed seasonal trends in 

 size composition or gonad ripeness all appeared to 

 spawn primarily in the spring and summer or 

 summer and fall. These were Vinciguerria spp., 

 Chauliodus sloani, Astronesthes indicus, and prob- 

 ably A. spendidus and Heterophotus ophistoma. 

 Their seasons of peak reproduction were thus 

 similar to those of the abundant myctophids 

 (Clarke, 1973). The data onGonostoma elongatum 

 and Idiacanthus fasciola suggested rather incon- 

 clusively that these species spawn primarily in 

 the summer and winter, respectively. Several 

 fairly abundant species, Gonostoma atlanticum, 

 Danaphos oculatus, Valenciennellus tripunc- 

 tulatus, Eustomias bifilis, Thysanactis dentex, 

 Photostomias guernei, and Malacosteus niger, 

 showed no indication of seasonality in reproduc- 

 tion. Possibly the larvae of those species which 

 exhibit no seasonality either hatch at a larger size 

 or live at greater depths than those of the seasonal 

 species and thus the former's spawning is not 

 timed to any seasonal fluctuations in food concen- 

 tration or size distribution in the upper layers. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



I am indebted to the many people who partici- 

 pated on the cruises and also the captain and crew 

 of the RV Teritu. The Cobb trawl samples were 

 taken during cruise 52 of the NMFS RV Townsend 

 Cromwell. I thank B. E. Higgins, chief scientist, 

 and others at the Southwest Fisheries Center 

 Honolulu Laboratory, NMFS, NOAA, for their 

 cooperation. R. E. Young and S. S. Amesbury of 

 the University of Hawaii provided specimens and 

 data from the opening-closing trawl. 



Patricia J. Wagner assisted capably in all phas- 

 es of the laboratory analyses. R. H. Gibbs, Jr. and 

 R. H. Goodyear kindly supplied or confirmed 

 identifications of many species. Their assistance 

 in untangling several systematic problems is 

 greatly appreciated. Any errors are my own. 



This research was supported by NSF GB-23931 

 to the University of Hawaii and by funds from the 



University of Hawaii, Hawaii Institute of Marine 

 Biology. 



LITERATURE CITED 



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