NOTES Richards et al : Identifying tuna larvae (genus Thunnus] from the Gulf of Mexico 609 



TL of T. albacares could be distinguished electro- 

 phoretically from T. obesus. In the 10-12 mm TL range, 

 some of their specimens had ventral tail pigment and 

 some did not, but had the albacares electrophoretic 

 character. The ventral or dorsal tail pigment seen in 

 specimens this large is the juvenile pattern and not the 

 larval pigment pattern. Distinguishing between larval 

 and juvenile pigmentation is very difficult in these 

 transforming sizes, and care must be taken to docu- 

 ment the size and nature of the pigment. 



Acknowledgments 



We thank Mark Leiby and Jack Gartner for providing 

 the larvae from the SEAMAP collections. Bruce Col- 

 lette, Witold Klawe, Shoji Ueyanagi, and John Finu- 

 cane kindly reviewed the manuscript. 



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