70 



Fishery Bulletin 98(1) 



Figure 5 



Position of the Gulf Stream front and locations 

 of neuston collections of surveys when swordfish 

 larvae were collected from 19V3 to 1980 (solid lines 

 denote assigned axis of the Gulf Stream front, 

 small circles locations of neuston collections; large 

 circles locations of swordfish larvae: (A) March 

 19V3; (Bl May 19V3; (C) July V3; (D) November 

 19V3;(E) August and September 1974; (F) August 

 and September 19V5; (G) January and February 

 19V6; I H ) August and September 19V6; (I ) Septem- 

 ber 19V8;(JiApnl 1979. 



to the shoreward side of the frontal axis. Larvae were 

 evenly distributed within the frontal zone (Table 1). 



Length of larvae 



Swordfish lai-vae ranged from 2.8 mm SL to 110 mm 

 TL. The two largest larvae, >100 mm TL, were col- 

 lected in the Atlantic and in the Caribbean. The small- 

 est and youngest larvae, those <5 mm SL (Fig. 8), 

 were collected in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the 

 vicinity of the Gulf Loop Current between 24° and 

 28'N (here, 39 of 152 larvae were <5 mm), and off 

 the southeast coast from Georgia north to Cape Hat- 

 teras between 30° and 35°N latitude (here, 15 of 62 

 larvae were <5 mm SL). Larval lengths were not cor- 

 related with latitude (Pearson product-moment corre- 

 lation coefficient=-0.1360). 



Approximate age of larvae 



The smallest lai-va measured ( after preservation in 95*^ 

 ethanol), taken in the Gulf of Mexico from SEAMAP, 

 was appreciably smaller than the length at hatching 

 for larvae (measured alive, 27 h after fertilization) 

 from the Mediterranean (Yasuda et al., 1978). One 

 larva 2.8 mm SL from the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and 



