Kendall and Matarese: Early life history descriptions of marine teleosts 



729 



than half of the species present in several regions 

 are Scorpaenidae, Macrouridae, and Bothidae. Be- 

 sides these widely distributed families, large propor- 

 tions of species of families with more restricted 

 ranges are undescribed as larvae, such as the Cot- 

 tidae in the Northeast Pacific. More species in oce- 

 anic families are poorly known as larvae than are 

 indicated in Table 3, because only Ozawa ( 1986) deals 

 exclusively with that fauna. 



Discussion 



Factors contributing to variations in the amount of 

 early life history information available among geo- 

 graphic regions include the history of fisheries in the 

 region, the presence of key researchers, and the taxo- 

 nomic diversity and scientific interest in each region. 



History of the fisheries 



Generally the geographic regions where larvae of the 

 majority of species are known have had long histo- 



ries of important fisheries. Studies on fish eggs and 

 larvae were pioneered in the late 1800's by countries 

 that engaged in the fisheries of the Northeast Atlan- 

 tic (see Hempel, 1979; Ahlstrom and Moser, 1981). 

 Work before 1900 consisted mainly of basic biologi- 

 cal studies, sampling eggs and larvae at sea, and 

 rearing eggs and yolk-sac larvae following artificial 

 fertilization for release at sea. Similar studies were 

 initiated concurrently off the east coast of North 

 America. Although during this period the identity of 

 the eggs and larvae of many species was established 

 and knowledge of oceanography of the regions was 

 expanded greatly, these early studies resulted in ill- 

 fated mass releases of young larvae reared in hatch- 

 eries on both sides of the North Atlantic (Shelbourne, 

 1965). 



From 1900 to 1950, most early life history studies 

 were conducted on North Atlantic fishes, expanding 

 beyond descriptive work, rearing experiments, and 

 release of young larvae (see Ahlstrom and Moser, 

 1981). The amount of such research was related to 

 harvest by region. Based on catches in 1938 and 1948, 



