Table 1. — Fin-ray counts of Tetrapturus audax. 



'The figure of 25 which appears here in the translation of the 1949 paper is evidently a misprint. 



hypothesis by including eastern Pacific fish in the 

 southern population and demonstrating that growth 

 of the pectoral fin is allometric with an inflection at 

 about 185-cm eye-fork length. They pointed out that 

 mixing of the two populations occurs in the tropics 

 and suggested that Mexican fish belong principally to 

 the southern-eastern group and that southern Califor- 

 nia fish are derived from both groups but dominated 

 by the northern. 



Merrett (1971) found striped marlin of the tropical 

 western Indian Ocean to have relatively long pectoral 

 fins indicating a closer relation to the southern-east- 

 ern population than to the northern. 



There has been little mention in the literature of 

 geographical variation in color pattern, but the strik- 

 ing almost zebralike bars on the freshly caught New 

 Zealand specimen in the photo published by Gregory 

 and Conrad (1939) appears more pronounced than in 

 fish from other regions. 



To date, the knowledge of subpopulations, if they 

 truly exist, is insufficient for morphological definition. 



The morphological changes of larvae and adoles- 

 cent phases are of course remarkable. See 3.22 and 

 3.23. 



Morrow (1952a) found significant (P < 0.001) 

 negative allometry in the dorsal and ventral lobes of 

 the caudal fin and a slight but not statistically signifi- 

 cant (P = 0.065) negative allometry in the length of 

 the pectoral fin of 49 adult fish from Cape Brett, New 

 Zealand. The pelvic fins show extreme negative 



allometry appearing to cease growth after reaching a 

 certain size (Morrow, 1957; Royce, 1957). Negative 

 allometry was found in Peruvian specimens for body 

 depth and snout tip to origin of first anal fin (Morrow, 

 1957). Ueyanagi (1957b) found extreme negative and 

 positive allometry, respectively, in central dorsal rays 

 relative to body depth and pectoral length relative to 

 body depth in young specimens (85-175 cm) which 

 proved the synonymy of Kajikia formosana and T. 

 audax. Royce (1957) also found similar allometry. 



Ontogenetic change in body form is shown in Figure 

 1. The morphological change of the snout (its growth 

 relative to the body length) from the postlarval to 

 adult stage of striped marlin is relatively small in 

 comparison with those of other istiophorid species. 

 However, the change of the dorsal fin shape during 

 growth is remarkable in this species (Ueyanagi, 

 1963b). 



In relation to functional morphology, Fierstine 

 (1968) found an average aspect ratio (span/surface 

 area of one side of fin) of 9.0 for the caudal fin of three 

 striped marlin from the eastern Pacific. This high 

 ratio, indicating relative efficency as a hydrofoil, was 

 greater than that for seven other scombroid species 

 but less than that for the sailfish, Istiophorus 

 platypterus, and the white marlin, T. albidus (10.0 

 and 10.3, respectively). 



Published weight-length regression constants are 

 summarized in Table 2. 



135 



