HUBBS and WISNER REVISION OF THE SAURIES 



Discussion of Synonymy. — It has been consis- 

 tently overlooked that Valenciennes [1846 

 iXVIIIl:477-479] recognizably described this 

 dwarf scomberesocid, from 25 leagues north of 

 Saint Helena Island in the tropical Atlantic Ocean 

 and from Mauritius Island in the Indian Ocean or 

 on the return journey I to France!. He misidentified 

 this species as Scomhreso.x sciiteHatttm LeSeuer. 

 However, Scombresox scutellatum LeSueur( 18221 

 was based on a small specimen, obviously of 

 Scomberesox saurus. that was taken from the 

 stomach of a cod brought to Boston from the bank 

 of Newfoundland. The Atlantic specimen de- 

 scribed by Valenciennes also was supposed to be a 

 young saury that had been eaten by a dolphin fish, 

 identified as Coryphaena equisetis, caught "a 

 vingt-cinq lieues au nord de Sainte-Helene." As- 

 suming this to be the island on w'hich Napoleon 

 was confined, on the basis of 2.76 mi to a league, 

 from the old French system, the location was ap- 

 proximately 14°48' S, 05"42' W (marked as an 

 open circle on Figure 12). This location is obvi- 

 ously within the now known habitat of Ncinichthys 

 simulans and far from the range of S. saurus. 

 whereas the specimen treated by LeSueur was 

 centered within the area where S. saurus alone 

 occurs, in abundance. 



That Valenciennes had an example of the dwarf 

 Atlantic saury is obvious from his description of 

 the beak in a small specimen. Valenciennes wrote: 

 "La brevite du museau est aussi non moins remar- 

 quable; car le longueur du bee n'est quere moitie 

 du reste de la tete; le bee superieur lui-meme n'est 

 pas beaucoup plus prolonge que celui des plusieurs 

 hemiramphes." He further stated (p. 478), "Ce 

 petit poisson, long de deux pouces neuflignes . . . ." 

 Since the old French "pouce" was 27.07 mm long, 

 and a "ligne" one-twelfth of a pouce, we compute 

 the length of the fish as about 75 mm. A scom- 

 beresocid of this size, with beak scarcely half the 

 length of the head behind the beak, and with snout 

 comparable with that of a hemiramphid, could 

 scarcely be other than a Nanichthys. Since the 

 specimen collected at "I'lsIe-de-France" [Mauri- 

 tius], or on the return journey, was described as of 

 the same size and of the same species, and since A'^. 

 simulans is now known to occur in the southern 

 Indian Ocean, it has seemed highly probable that 

 it also pertains to that species. This assumption 

 has been verified for us, very kindly, by Marie- 

 Louise Bauchot'' who has found that the two 



specimens, respectively 66.9 and 67.1 mm SL, 

 have 1 1 and 10 pectoral rays, 23 and 22 gill rakers, 

 and 59 and 60 vertebrae (within the range for A^. 

 simulans but far below the range for S. saurus). 



It is now clear that Liitken (1880:564-569, fig. 

 a-h) unknowingly included A'^. simulans as well as 

 Scomberesox s. saurus in his account of S. saurus. 

 This is evident from his statement of latitudinal 

 distribution in the Atlantic Ocean from 11 30' to 

 48" N and from 12° to 40'32' S. and in the Indian 

 Ocean from 27° to 38°20' S, as well as from his 

 figures; figures c,d, and e represent fish 51, 60, and 

 100 mm TL from tip of mandible to caudal-fin fork 

 (corresponding to standard lengths of about 47, 55, 

 and 89 mm, from tip of upper jaw to base of caudal 

 fin). Beaks of specimens f-h (170 mm to full adult) 

 pertain to Scomberesox. Comparison of these three 

 figures with our illustrations of growth changes in 

 the four species (Figure 2 1 demonstrates agree- 

 ment only with N. simulans. The divergent ap- 

 proach toward hemiramphine beak structure in 

 this developmental series of Nanichthys appar- 

 ently did not disturb Liitken, for he showed in the 

 same compilation of figures the development of 

 Belone vulgaris from the beakless very young 

 through the halfbeaked juveniles to the nearly 

 full-beaked adult stage. In the lack of locality data 

 it is not clear which species are represented by 

 Liitken's figures a and b, which represent pre- 

 juveniles, 16 and 30 mm in fork length, with al- 

 most no beak development. 



The epochal treatise of Atlantic epipelagic 

 fishes by Mui-ray and Hjort ( 1912), expanding that 

 of Liitken ( 1880), recognized the preponderance of 

 Scomberesocidae in the mid-Atlantic but failed to 

 distinguish between S. sQi/ri/.s and N. simulans. 

 Evidence in these classics, however, renders it 

 clear that both accounts dealt with both species. 

 Murray and Hjort's figure 541 of a 6. 2 cm saury (on 

 p. 747) almost surely represents A', simulans by 

 reason of the better development of the beaks at 

 that size (although the body was drawn too deep). 

 Their figure 542 is a copy of Liitken's figure 567 

 (discussed above). The well-filamented egg labeled 

 "Egg of Scomberesocid" (fig. 531) was obviously 

 misidentified and very probably represents an 

 exocoetid (Orton 1964). The treatment of sauries 

 by Murray and Hjort pertains almost wholly to 

 young (the maximum size given, 50 cm, was pre- 

 sumably drawn from some other source); they 



^Marie-Louise Bauchot, Fish Division, Museum National 



d'Historia Naturelle, Rue Cuvier, 57, Paris, France, pers. com- 

 mun 2 Mav 1968, 



533 



