FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 4 



parts of the EASTROPAC pattern, ranging 

 from near-surface to deep, it is anticipated that 

 depth distribution of larvae will be markedly 

 affected by the temperature structure. A care- 

 fully planned study of depth distribution of 

 larvae in the eastern tropical Pacific in relation 

 to temperature and thermocline depth is badly 

 needed. Lacking this, it is difficult to meaning- 

 fully relate larval distributions to temperature. 



A REVIEW OF SIGNIFICANT PAPERS 



DEALING WITH ADULT FISHES OF 



THE EASTROPAC AREA 



A working knowledge of the adult fishes of 

 an oceanic region is a necessary prerequisite to 

 meaningful study of the fish larvae of that re- 

 gion. Most larval series, initially, are estab- 

 lished by working backwards from larger iden- 

 tified specimens (late-larvae or early juveniles) 

 to early-stage larvae. Until recently shore fish- 

 es of the eastern tropical Pacific were much 

 better known than deep-sea fishes, e.g., studies 

 by Meek and Hildebrand (1923, 1925, 1928) for 

 Panama and Hildebrand (1946) for Peru. Shore 

 fishes, however, were not an important element 

 of the EASTROPAC ichthyoplankton. 



A major contribution to our knowledge of 

 eastern Pacific fishes was made by Carman 

 (1899), who worked up the fishes collected on 

 the Albatross Expedition of 1891 to the west 

 coasts of Mexico, Central and South America, 

 and off the Galapagos Islands, Carman dealt 

 with 180 species of fish, most new to science; 

 about a third of these were pelagic, oceanic 

 fishes. Included among the latter are the two 

 most common pelagic fishes, Diogenichthys la- 

 ternatus and Vinciguerria lucetia, in the eastern 

 tropical Pacific, based on their abundance as 

 larvae. 



The second oceanographic expedition of the 

 Pawnee to the eastern Pacific in 1926 added ma- 

 terially to our knowledge of the deep-sea fishes. 

 Several of the species described by Parr (1931) 

 from these collections are common as larvae in 

 EASTROPAC plankton hauls, including Bathyl- 

 agus nigrigenys, Diaphus pacificus, Larnpanyc- 



tus idostigma, L. parvicauda, and Scopelarch- 

 oides yiicholsi. 



The New York Zoological Society sponsored 

 several expeditions to the eastern Pacific which 

 stimulated papers on Pacific Myctophidae by 

 Beebe and Vander Pyle (1944) and on ceratioid 

 fishes by Beebe and Crane (1947). The paper 

 on myctophids contains information on taxon- 

 omy, biology, and zoogeography of 24 species 

 of myctophids of which none were new. The 

 paper by Beebe and Crane on deep-sea ceratioid 

 fishes dealt with 24 species belonging to six 

 families, of which 10 were new. 



The ceratioid fishes of the Gulf of Panama 

 had received attention previously: the Danish 

 research vessel Dana had occupied several very 

 productive stations in the Gulf of Panama in 

 1922, from which Regan (1926) described 18 

 species of ceratioids, mostly new. Bertelsen 

 (1951) reported taking early life history stages 

 of 23 kinds of ceratioids from the Gulf of Pan- 

 ama in Dana collections from its round-the- 

 world expedition of 1928-30. 



Information on fishes off Peru was obtained 

 on the Yale South American Expedition of 1953, 

 Morrow (1957a) gave an annotated list of 104 

 shore fishes, 21 new to the Peruvian fauna, and 

 Morrow (1957b) gave an annotated list of 18 

 mid-depth fishes. 



Bussing (1965) reports on 15 pelagic trawl 

 hauls made on Eltanin cruises taken off the 

 South American coast in 1962 and 1963 between 

 lat 3° and 35°S, The collections contained 100 

 species, representing 33 families. Four trawl 

 hauls were made within the EASTROPAC area; 

 only one yielded substantial numbers of speci- 

 mens. This was Eltanm Station 34 at lat 7°45' 

 to 7°48'S, long 81°23'W, from which 45 species 

 were obtained, 



Haedrich and Nielsen (1966) provided an- 

 notated identifications of 32 species (21 fami- 

 lies) of fishes from stomachs of Alepisaurus 

 collected at 19 stations by exploratory longline 

 fishing from the Japanese RV Shoyo Maru. 

 Four collections were obtained within the EAS- 

 TROPAC area, and the other 15 between lat 

 20° and 40°S, 



Craddock and Mead (1970) reported on col- 

 lections made along two transects through the 



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