FISHES NEW TO THE EASTERN BERING SEA 



A joint Japan-United States groundfish survey 

 was conducted during the summer of 1979 on the 

 continental shelf and slope in the eastern Bering 

 Sea. Of the more than 100 species of fishes taken 

 during the survey, 1 has not been previously re- 

 ported from the Bering Sea — Kali indica Lloyd 

 1909 (Chiasmodontidae) — and 3 others have been 

 recorded, but no specific localities in the eastern 

 portion have been attributed as capture sites: 

 Percis japonicus (Pallas 1772) (Agonidae); 

 Laemonema longipes Schmidt 1938 (Moridae); and 

 Macropinna microstoma Chapman 1939 (Opis- 

 thoproctidae). In this paper we document the cap- 

 ture of the four species from the eastern Bering 

 Sea. 



Collection Information (Table 1) 



Specimens of the four species were captured 

 with a 53.4 m (headrope length) commercial bot- 

 tom trawl fished by a 350-ton land-based trawler, 

 the Yakushi Maru No. 21 , chartered by the 

 Fisheries Agency of Japan. As no closing devices 

 were used, capture depths are unknown. Presum- 

 ably, the specimens of Kali, Laemonema, and 

 Macropinna species were captured in midwater as 

 the trawl was lowered or raised, for the species 

 have been collected previously almost exclusively 

 by midwater trawls. Specimens are deposited in 

 the Laboratory of Marine Zoology, Hokkaido Uni- 

 versity, Hakodate (HUMZ), and the U.S. National 

 Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 

 (USNM). Other specimens of Percis japonicus 

 and Laemonema longipes were examined from the 

 collections of the Northwest and Alaska Fisheries 

 Center Kodiak Laboratory, National Marine 

 Fisheries Service, NOAA, Kodiak, Alaska, and 



Table l. — Collection data for the eastern Bering Sea fish speci- 

 mens (summer 1979). 



Station 

 no. 



Date 

 (GMT) 



Position 

 (middle of tow) 



Water temp. (°C) 



Bottom 



depth (m) Surface Bottom 



the College of Fisheries, University of Washing- 

 ton, Seattle, Wash. (UW), respectively. 



Kali indica Lloyd 1909 

 Figure 1 (upper) 



One specimen, HUMZ 81941, taken at station 

 124. This bathypelagic chiasmodontid is widely 

 distributed in tropical seas and has been taken in 

 the temperate South Atlantic and North Pacific as 

 well (Johnson 1969; Johnson and Cohen 1974). 

 Hubbs et al. (1979) have recently reported it from 

 off California based on two specimens (lat. 

 32°37.7' N, just north of the United States- 

 Mexican border; and about lat. 33° N, long. 

 119°20' W; locality information from L. J. Demps- 

 ter ). The Bering Sea specimen is the most north- 

 ern record of the species, the first from boreal 

 waters, and an addition to the fish fauna of Alaska. 



Counts: D. XIII+24; A. L25; R 11; V. 1,5; bran- 

 chiostegal rays 6. Teeth: in lower jaw 5 (outer row) 

 and 3 (inner row); in upper jaw 6 (outer) and 3 

 (inner); on palatine 4. Measurements in milli- 

 meters: standard length 175.3; predorsal 48.5; 

 preanal 95.8; greatest body depth 30.1; least depth 

 caudal peduncle 7.6; length caudal peduncle 20.6; 

 pectoral fin length 30.9; head length 41.6; snout 

 14.5; eye diameter 6.2; postorbital length of head 

 22.8; width bony interorbital 11.6; length upper 

 jaw 34.2; length lower jaw 37.2; largest teeth on 

 upper jaw 8.9. 



Percis japonicus (Pallas 1772) 

 Figure 1 (lower) 



One specimen, HUMZ 84945, taken at station 

 43; another deposited in the Northwest and 

 Alaska Fisheries Center Kodiak Laboratory, 

 NMFS, from lat. 57°16.3 ' N, long. 172°56.5 ' W (RV 

 Oregon cruise 794, haul 90, 23 July 1979). Other 

 specimens have been taken from the eastern Ber- 

 ing Sea northwest of Unalaska. This agonid is 

 common in Japanese waters and is also known 

 from the Okhotsk Sea and the Asiatic coast of the 



'Lillian J. Dempster, Associate Curator, Department of 

 Ichthyology, California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, 

 San Francisco, CA 94118, pers. commun. January 1980. 



^Doyne Kessler, Fishery Biologist, Northwest and Alaska 

 Fisheries Center Kodiak Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries 

 Service, NOAA, P.O. Box 1638, Kodiak, AK 99615, in litt., 5 

 August 1980, and James Long, student. Department of Fisheries 

 and Wildlife, Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331, pers. 

 commun. 9 September 1980. 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 79, NO. 2, 1981. 



353 



