pharyngeal dentition. Three pairs of dorsal 

 pharyngeal tooth plates are present, associated 

 with the pharyngobranchial elements of branchial 

 arches I, II, and III, with one tooth plate of each 

 pair being located on either side of the dorsal mid- 

 line. Each tooth plate is slightly curved with a 

 posteriorly directed dentigerous surface. In the 

 126- and 137-mm SL checkered puffers, the four 

 tooth plates in the anterior two pairs were each 4 

 mm long and those in the posterior pair were each 

 3 mm long. In the 108- and 118-mm SL bandtail 

 puffers, the four tooth plates in the anterior two 

 pairs were each 3 mm long and those in the poste- 

 rior pair were each 2 mm long. The dorsal 

 pharyngeal tooth plates of both puffer species bear 

 upon the pair of ventrally located, and nonden- 

 tigerous, fifth ceratobranchial (lower pharyngeal) 

 bones. The pharyngeal tooth apparatuses likely 

 function to pull flesh from and to further grind and 

 break crab and mollusc shells. The smooth puffer, 

 Lagocephalus laevigatus, also has strong beaklike 

 jaw teeth but has dentigerous tooth plates as- 

 sociated with the pharyngobranchial elements of 

 only the II and III branchial arches (Tyler 1962). 

 In general, fishes in the Order Plectognathi have 

 very strong jaw teeth and comparatively weak 

 pharyngeal dentition (Al-Hussaini 1947). 



Acknowledgments 



MERRINER. J. v., AND J, L. L,-\HOCHE 



1977 Fecundity of the northern puffer, Sphoeroides 

 maculatus. from Chesapeake Bay. Chesapeake Sei. 

 18;81-83. 

 REID. G K, JR. 



1954, An ecological study of the Gulf of Mexico fishes, in 

 the vicinity of Cedar Key, Florida. Bull. Mar. Sci. Gulf 

 Caribb, 4:1-94, 

 RICKER. W. E. 



1973, Linear regressions in fishery research J Fish. 

 Res. Board Can, 30:409-434. 

 SHIPP. R, L. 



1974. The pufferfishes (Tetraodontidael of the Atlantic 

 Ocean, Publ Gulf Coast Res. Lab, Mus, 4, 163 p, 

 T.ARGErr, T, E, 



1978. Food resource partitioning by the pufferfishes 

 Sphoeroides spenglen and S. testudineus from Biscayne 

 Bay, Florida. Mar, Biol, iBerl.) 49:83-91, 

 TYLER, J. C 



1962, The general osteology of representative fishes of the 

 Order Plectognathi, Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford Univ., Palo 

 Alto, Calif. 388 p. 



Timothy E, Targett 



Department of Zoology 

 University of Maine 

 Orono. ME 04473 



CORRELATES OF MATURITY IN THE 

 COMMON DOLPHIN, DELPHl''<LS DELPHIS 



I thank the many people who helped with the 

 seining of fishes. I also thank Hugh H. DeWitt, Jon 

 G. Stanley, and Nancy M. Targett for their helpful 

 comments on the manuscript. 



Literature Cited 



AL-HUSSAINl, A. H. 



1947. The feeding habits and the morphology of the 

 alimentary tract of some teleosls living in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Marine Biological Station, Ghardaqa. Red 

 Sea. Publ. Mar. Biol, Stn. Ghardaqa (Red Seal 5:1-61. 

 CHRISTENSEN, R, F. 



1965. An ichthyological survey of Jupiter Inlet and 

 Loxahatchee River, Flonda. MS, Thesis, Florida State 

 Univ.. Tallahassee, 318 p, 

 HILDEBRAND. S, F,, A.ND W. C, SCHROEDER 



1928. Fishes of Chesapeake Bay. Bull. U.S. Bur. Fish. 

 43, 366 p. 



Isaacson, p. a. 



1963. Length-weight relationship and stomach contents of 

 the swellfish {Spheroides niaculatus) m the York River, 

 Virginia. Commer. Fish. Rev, 25(91:5-7. 



Laroche, J. L., AND J. Davis 



1973. Age, growth, and reproduction of the northern puff- 

 er, Sphoeroides maculatus. Fish. Bull., U.S. 71:955- 

 963. 



Maturity of the gonads in mammals is closely re- 

 lated to other aspects of physical development. 

 Therefore, a simple method for estimating an in- 

 dividual's proximity to sexual maturity would be 

 to evaluate appropriate morphometric data. How- 

 ever, the morphometries traditionally collected on 

 cetaceans are less than ideal for this task. 



Studies on cetacean growth patterns have typi- 

 cally used data collected in a cross-sectionai man- 

 ner and have used large samples which included 

 all age-classes. Unfortunately, individual rates 

 and patterns are indistinct when values are aver- 

 aged using this method (Sinclair 1973). If a large 

 change in growth or development takes place over 

 a short period of time and the beginning of this 

 change does not occur at exactly the same age in 

 each individual, the data acquired from a group of 

 individuals will imply that the change takes place 

 at a slower rate and over a greater period of time 

 than is actually the case for an individual. 



The present study used parameters which indi- 

 cated the proximity of an individual to its own 

 mature condition, not the average mature condi- 



FISHERY BULLETIN VOL 77. NO 1. 1979 



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