A Larva of the Poorly Known 

 Serranid Fish Jeboehlkia gladifer 

 (Teleostei: Serranidae: Epinephelinae) 



Carole C. Baldwin 



Virginia Institute of Marine Science. School of Marine Science 

 College of William and Mary. Gloucester Point. Virginia 23062 



G. David Johnson 



Division of Fishes, National Museum of Natural History 

 Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC 20560 



Jeboehlkia gladifer Robins, 1967, 

 was described from a single mature 

 female collected at 165 m (90 fm) in 

 the Caribbean Sea. Several addi- 

 tional specimens have been col- 

 lected recently in similarly deep 

 waters of the Caribbean and west- 

 ern North Atlantic (R.G. Gilmore, 

 Harbor Branch Found., Ft. Pierce, 

 FL, pers. commun., Fall 1990). 

 Robins (1967) noted a strong resem- 

 blance between J. gladifer and the 

 epinepheline genus Liopropoma, 

 but accorded the former generic 

 status on the basis of absence of 

 pored lateral line scales. Several 

 features of the holotype— its small 

 size (40.8mm standard length, SL), 

 elongate dorsal fin spine, produced 

 pelvic fin rays, and large eye- 

 appear paedomorphic with respect 

 to other epinephelines (Kendall 

 1984). 



The following description of larval 

 Jeboehlkia is based on a single speci- 

 men, 10.2 mm SL, collected between 

 10 and 300 m in Atlantic slope water 

 off New York (MCZ 81740, Fig. 1). 

 The specimen is in poor condition, 

 lacks pigment (but possibly it is 

 naturally unpigmented), and is bent 

 in half at midbody; nonetheless, it 

 is identifiable as J. gladifer on the 

 basis of counts and morphology 

 of fin rays. The holotype (USNM 



* Contribution 1650 of the Virginia Institute 

 of Marine Science. 



201422) has the following counts: 

 dorsal fin rays VI II, 9; anal fin rays 

 111,7; pectoral fin rays 15; pelvic fin 

 rays 1,5; principal caudal fin rays 17 

 and vertebrae 24. The spinous dor- 

 sal fin in the larval specimen is in- 

 complete, but the larva clearly has 

 nine dorsal-fin soft rays, a meristic 

 feature unique among Atlantic Epi- 

 nephelinae to Jeboehlkia (see Ken- 

 dall 1979, Table 1). Corroborating 

 the identification of this specimen 

 as Jeboehlkia is the presence of 

 seven anal-fin soft rays, 15 pectoral 

 fin rays, and a thin, flexible, elon- 

 gate second dorsal fin spine. 

 Although Robins (1967) stated that 

 the holotype has seven dorsal-fin 

 spines and that the first spine is the 

 elongate element, an examination 

 of a radiograph of the holotype in- 

 dicates that the first spine is only an 

 unexposed nubbin and was over- 

 looked by Robins; consequently, 

 there is a total of eight (not seven) 

 dorsal-fin spines. The tiny first 

 spine is the only element borne in 

 supernumerary association with the 

 first dorsal fin pterygiophore, and 

 the elongate (second) spine in larval 

 Jeboehlkia is serially associated 

 with the first dorsal pterygiophore, 

 a hallmark of all known larvae of 

 the Epinephelinae. 



The specimen was illustrated (flat- 

 tened right-side-up beneath a glass 

 microscope slide) with the aid of a 

 camera lucida and then photograph- 

 ically reversed. The pectoral fin 



was drawn from the left side of the 

 body, and myomeres were recon- 

 structed from a combination of 

 vertebrae (partially visible on the 

 damaged right side of the body) and 

 myomeres (partially visible on the 

 left side of the body). Counts, mea- 

 surements, and qualifications of 

 morphometric features (e.g., mod- 

 erately deep, large) follow Leis and 

 Trnski (1989). Standard length is 

 abbreviated as SL; institutional 

 acronyms are as listed in Leviton et 

 al. (1985). 



The postflexion larva of J. gladi- 

 fer is laterally compressed, moder- 

 ately deep (body depth at pectoral 

 fin base 34.5% SL), and has a large 

 head (42.4% SL). The specimen 

 essentially is eviscerated, but the 

 anus is evident just posterior to 

 midbody (56.5% SL). The eye is 

 round, moderately large, and great- 

 er in diameter than the length of the 

 snout (diameter of eye 11.0% SL, 

 length of snout 9.4% SL). The 

 mouth is large, the maxilla reaching 

 just beyond middle of the eye. 



The distance between the dorsal 

 and ventral body margins of the 

 caudal peduncle is 15.7% SL (be- 

 tween dashed lines on caudal pedun- 

 cle in Figure 1), but the total depth 

 of the peduncle is greater (18.6% 

 SL between solid lines on caudal 

 peduncle in Figure 1). This dispar- 

 ity is due to the presence of two 

 blade-like sheaths of modified tissue 

 that lie above and below the dorsal 

 and ventral margins of the caudal 

 peduncle, respectively, and extend 

 from the posterior bases of the dor- 

 sal and anal fins to the caudal fin. 

 This tissue contains numerous small 

 globules (of fat?). Tissue with a sim- 

 ilar appearance covers the procur- 

 rent rays of the caudal fin and ap- 

 pears along the lengths of most 

 principal caudal fin rays, on the rays 

 of the soft dorsal and anal fins, and 

 on the head. 



Manuscript accepted 30 January 1991. 

 Fishery Bulletin, U.S. 89:535-537 (1991). 



535 



