Kendall and Matarese: Early life history descriptions of marine teleosts 



727 



80N 



-60S 



Figure 1 



FAO fishing areas ( numbers in squares ) and areas included in early life history guides ( shaded, 

 numbers in circles which are keyed to references in Table 2, except for 10 which refers to 

 Ozawa, 1986). Early life history guides in Indo-Pacific area 8 deal with reef and shore fishes 

 in that area, although oceanic areas are also shaded on the map. 



the eggs of 726+ (4%) were known, and larvae of 

 1,932+ (10%) were known. At a higher taxonomic 

 level, however, larvae of representative species from 

 about two-thirds of the families of marine fishes are 

 known ( Ahlstrom and Moser, 1981 ). Richards ( 1985 ) 

 did not subdivide the larval stage as we have (yolk- 

 sac, preflexion, flexion, and postflexion), but most of 

 the illustrations in Moser et al. ( 1984) are of flexion 

 and postflexion larvae. Although not specifically in- 

 tended to provide original information for specific 

 identification offish larvae, Moser et al. ( 1984) pre- 

 sented many original illustrations. 



Regional guides to early life history stages of fishes 

 are now available for nine large areas of the world 

 ocean (Fig. 1). Such guides for both coasts of South 

 America are noticeably lacking, as are guides to most 

 oceanic regions. Some species described in the guides 

 are also found outside the areas specifically covered 

 in these guides; therefore identification of eggs and 

 larvae collected elsewhere is also facilitated by the 

 use of these guides. Some recent guides partially 

 overlap the geographic regions addressed in earlier 

 guides (e.g. Brownell [1979J studied fishes from the 

 Cape of Good Hope, an area that was included in 

 Olivar and Fortuno [1991]; Miller et al. [1979] stud- 



ied Hawaiian fishes, and their research was included 

 in Leis and Rennis [ 1983] and Leis and Tmski [ 1989]; 

 Ozawa [1986] studied oceanic fishes in the areas in- 

 cluded in the works of Okiyama [1988], Leis and 

 Rennis [1983], and Leis and Trnski [1989]; and 

 Fritzsche [1978], Hardy [1978, a and b], Johnson 

 [1978], Jones et al. [1978], and Martin and Drewry 

 [1978] studied a portion of the Northwest Atlantic 

 that was included in Fahay [1983]). 



We selected the Northeast Pacific as addressed in 

 Matarese et al. (1989) (i.e. the Pacific Ocean and 

 Bering Sea within 200 nautical miles of the coast 

 between lat. 38°N and 66°N and west to long. 180°) 

 for detailed evaluation of the taxonomic composition 

 and available early life history information of the 

 ichthyofauna (Table 1). Atotal of 627 species of fishes 

 are found in the region, and 592 are thought to spawn 

 in marine waters there (Matarese et al., 1989). These 

 species represent 22 orders and 94 families. The most 

 speciose orders are the Scorpaeniformes (272 species) 

 and Perciformes (140 species). The most speciose 

 families in the Scorpaeniformes are the Cottidae, Cy- 

 clopteridae, and Scorpaenidae, and in the Perciformes, 

 the Zoarcidae. While most of the fishes in the North- 

 east Pacific are oviparous, only about 252 species 



