COLLETTE and RUSSO: SPANISH MACKERELS 



will be about 20 t out of the 2,000 t taken in 

 the inshore fisheries according to A. Ben-Tuvia 

 and D. Golani. 4 It is a highly regarded species 

 that commands a good price in the Philippine 

 Islands, Thailand, India, Madagascar, and East 

 Africa (Warfel 1950; Tongyai 1971b; Devanesen 

 and Chidambaram 1953; Fourmanoir and Cros- 

 nier 1964; Williams 1964, respectively). It is a 

 prime target of the Natal ski-boat fishermen and 

 is pursued by sport and commercial anglers in 

 South Africa, using lures, feathers, clupeids, and 

 anchovies as bait (van der Elst 1981). It is mar- 

 keted fresh, on ice, or salted and dried (Gopalan 

 Nayar 1958; Fourmanoir and Crosnier 1964; Wil- 

 liams 1964; Tongyai 1971b; McPherson 1981). A 

 lipid-soluble toxin similar to ciguatoxin has been 

 found in the flesh of S. commerson between lat. 

 24° S and 26° S along the east coast of Queensland 

 (Lewis and Endean 1983). From 1976 to 1980, at 

 least 38 toxic S. commerson, resulting in 217 

 poisonings, came from this area. 



Distribution. — Widespread throughout the Indo- 

 West Pacific from South Africa and the Red Sea 

 east through the Indo-Australian Archipelago to 

 Australia and Fiji and north to Hong Kong, 

 Formosa, and Japan (Fig. 51). The northernmost 

 record is from the northern coast of Yamaguchi 

 Prefecture, southern Honshu, on the Sea of Japan 

 (Kishinouye 1923:417). Its range extends farther 

 out into the Pacific islands than any of the other 

 species of Scomberomorus, throughout the Phil- 

 ippine Islands, to New Caledonia (Chapman 1946; 

 Fourmanoir and Laboute 1976; Uchida 1978) and 

 Fiji (Jordan and Dickerson 1908; Whitley 1927; 

 Fowler 1959). Records from Wallis and Futuna 

 Islands and Cook Islands (Uchida 1978) are doubt- 

 ful and need to be verified. In Australia the range 

 extends south to Sydney (Castelnau 1879; AMS 

 1.9693) and, rarely, even to Victoria and Tas- 

 mania (Munro 1958a; Whitley 1964a) on the east 

 coast and to Rottnest Island off Perth, Western 

 Australia (Hutchins 1979). From Australia and 

 the East Indies, the range extends along the coast 

 of the Indian Ocean including the Persian Gulf 

 and Red Sea to False Bay, Cape Town, South 

 Africa (Barnard 1948). The range includes many 

 major offshore island groups in the Indian Ocean: 



Andamans and Nicobars (Jones et al. 1960), Lac- 

 cadives (Nagabhushanam and Chandrasekhara 

 Rao 1972), Amirantes (Ommanney 1953), Corn- 

 ores and Madagascar (Fourmanoir and Crosnier 

 1964), and Mauritius (Bleeker 1874; Baissac 

 1976). It has strayed into the South Atlantic 

 because we have examined the head of a speci- 

 men (BMNH 1965.12.1.104) collected by Arthur 

 Loveridge from Egg Island, St. Helena. It has 

 even traversed the Suez Canal and entered the 

 eastern Mediterranean Sea where it is now 

 known from Lebanon (George and Athanassiou 

 1965) and Israel (Collette 1970; USNM 226334; 

 Golani and Kredo 1981). 



Geographic variation. — Samples were adequate 

 to compare the morphometric data of three popu- 

 lations of S. commerson by ANCOVA (Table 15): 

 Red Sea (n = 12), Indian Ocean (n = 31-34), and 

 East Indies (n = 21-22). Null hypotheses that the 

 three sets of regressions are coincident were 

 accepted for 11 of 26 regressions, rejected for the 

 other 15. For one set, interorbital width, the 

 regressions for all three populations differed sig- 

 nificantly in slope. The Red Sea population dif- 

 fers significantly from the Indian Ocean popula- 

 tion in six regressions: Sn-ID, Sn-Pi , Ht 2D, Base 

 2D, Ht A, and interorbital width. The Indian 

 Ocean population differs from the East Indies 

 population in eight regressions: P1-P2, Hd L, P 2 

 tip- vent, Ht 2D, Sn (fleshy), Sn (bony), maxilla L, 

 and interorbital width. 



There are also geographic differences in meris- 

 tic characters. Populations in the Red Sea and 

 Persian Gulf tend to have fewer vertebrae (23-24 

 caudal, 43 total) and fewer rays in the second 

 dorsal and anal fins (usually 16-17 second dorsal 

 and 17-18 anal) than other populations (24-27 

 caudal, 44-46 total vertebrae; 17-18 second dorsal, 

 18-19 anal rays). Populations in the East Indies 

 and Gulf of Thailand tend to have more vertebrae 

 (25-27 caudal, 45-46 total) and anal finlets (mode 

 10 rather than 9). Gill rakers tend to be fewer in 

 the East Indies, Gulf of Thailand, and South 

 China Sea (2-6, usually 3 or 4) compared with 

 other populations (3-8, usually 4-6). 



Material examined. —Total 262 (94.2-1,155). 



3 A. Ben-Tuvia, Professor of Zoology, Zoology Department, The 

 Hebrew University, 91904 Jerusalem, Israel, pers. commun. 

 October 1982. 



4 A. Ben-Tuvia, Professor of Zoology, and D. Golani, Zoology 

 Department, The Hebrew University, 91904 Jerusalem, Israel, 

 pers. commun. October 1982. 



meas.: 120 (94.2-115): Israel (2); Red Sea (12); 

 Gulf of Aden (2); St. Helena (1); W 

 Indian Ocean (14); Arabian Sea (14); Bay 

 of Bengal (5); Andaman Sea (7); Gulf of 

 Thailand (14); East Indies (22, *C. ko- 



627 



