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Fishery Bulletin 92(4). 1994 



(43%) of them are expected to spawn pelagic eggs. 

 Among the Scorpaeniformes, only Anoplopoma fim- 

 bria is known to have pelagic eggs. 



Eggs have been illustrated for only 44 (less than 

 10%) of the species in the Northeast Pacific, and 8 of 

 these species produce demersal eggs. Eggs are known 

 for 16 of the 31 species of Pleuronectiformes with 

 pelagic eggs (36% of all described eggs). Yolk-sac lar- 

 vae are known for 90 species of fishes, including 32 

 species of the viviparous scorpaenid genus Sebastes 

 and 18 species of Pleuronectiformes. Preflexion lar- 

 vae are known for 165 species, flexion larvae for 169 

 species, postflexion larvae for 217 species, and trans- 

 forming larvae for 150 species. Some pelagic juveniles 

 are included in the count for transforming larvae, par- 

 ticularly those of the genus Sebastes. At least one illus- 

 tration of an early life history stage is available for 263 

 species in the Northeast Pacific (44% of the total). To 

 give an indication of the rate of advances in knowledge 

 of the ichthyofauna and its early life history in the 

 Northeast Pacific, since publication of Matarese et al. 

 ( 1989), one new species has been described (Yabe, 1991 ), 

 and descriptions of the larvae of seven additional spe- 



cies have become available (Maeda and Amaoka, 1988; 

 Matsui, 1991; Busby and Ambrose, 1993). 



The percentage of fishes with descriptive informa- 

 tion available on early life history stages varies con- 

 siderably in various regions of the world (Table 2). 

 Compared with the Northeast Pacific where the eggs 

 of 14% of the species with pelagic eggs are known, 

 only 5% of such species in the western central Atlantic 

 have been identified, whereas the eggs of about 70% of 

 such species are known in the Northeast Atlantic. 



Compared with the Northeast Pacific, where the lar- 

 vae of 44% of the species are known, larvae are known 

 for 34% of the species found in waters around Japan, 

 for 27% of the species in the western central Atlantic, 

 and for only 10% of the species in the Indo-Pacific (Table 

 2). However, larval illustrations are available for more 

 than half of the species in several geographic regions: 

 Northwest Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, Southeast At- 

 lantic, Northeast Atlantic, and the Antarctic (Table 2). 



Based on early life history guides, the number of 

 species for which early life history information is lack- 

 ing varies by family and by region (Table 3). Among 

 the families which have larvae described for fewer 



