eastern Pacific (east of long. 120°W), mature fish are 

 reported to occur there between lat. 5° and 20°N, 

 largely in May-June (Kume and Joseph, 1969b). 



In the Indian Ocean, larvae have been reported to 

 occur in the Banda and Timor seas during January to 

 February (Ueyanagi, 1959), and in the western Indian 

 Ocean during December to January between lat. 10° S 

 and 18°S and in the eastern Indian Ocean during Oc- 

 tober to November between lat. 6°N and 6°S (Jones 

 and Kumaran, 1964). Mature females are reported to 

 occur in March-May in the Bay of Bengal although 

 larval occurrence is not yet known there (Ueyanagi, 

 1964). 



The lower temperature limit in the distribution of 

 larvae is approximately 24°C both in the Indian and 

 Pacific oceans. However, the distributions differ in 

 that in the Pacific the larvae are scarcely found in 

 equatorial waters. It is noted that striped marlin lar- 

 vae are not likely to appear in the Kuroshio area, 

 while sailfish larvae occur there exclusively 

 (Ueyanagi, 1959). 



Information is very sparse on the distribution of the 

 juveniles. Nakamura (1968) reported on two juveniles 

 (body length, 12.15 and 14.5 cm) found in stomachs of 

 a yellowfin tuna, Thunnas albacares, and a dolphin, 

 Coryphaena hippurus, taken by longline. One juvenile 

 was found on 13 January 1955 at lat. 23°52'S, long. 

 175°49W and the other on 21 December 1964 at lat. 

 17°57'S, long. 67°29'E. These two occurrences coin- 

 cide with larval distributions in the South Pacific and 

 Indian Ocean, respectively. 



2.22 Adults 



Major areas of high abundance are the western Ara- 

 bian Sea, the central North Pacific (lat. 15°-30°N) 



and the eastern Pacific as shown in Figure 2. This 

 figure shows distributions based on highest quarter- 

 year hook rates by 5° squares for the years 1967-69 

 (Fisheries Agency of Japan, Research Division, 1969- 

 72). Lesser areas of abundance occur off South Africa, 

 northern Madagascar, northern Sumatra, Sri Lanka, 

 eastern and western Australia, central Pacific coast of 

 Japan, and the south central Pacific. 



The high density in the Arabian Sea appears to be 

 seasonal, occurring in the second quarter of the year. 

 However, fishing effort in other seasons has been very 

 slight. Off East Africa (lat. 0°-12°S) where striped 

 marlin are the most abundant marlin, the works of 

 Merrett (1968a, b) showed highest hook rates occurred 

 between lat. 2° and 4°S. The hook rate was six times 

 higher in the northeast monsoon (Nov. -Mar.) than in 

 the southeast monsoon (Apr. -Oct.). 



The season of high abundance off western and 

 eastern Australia is the fourth quarter (Fisheries 

 Agency of Japan, Research Division, 1969-72). Koga 

 (1967) states, however, that good catches occur in 

 winter off western Australia. In the South Pacific, 

 Koga states that it is a remarkable feature that the 

 main fishing areas, which show good catches from 

 August to December, show very poor catches from 

 January to July. 



In the northwestern Pacific, striped marlin are 

 abundant in Formosan waters, both in the Kuroshio 

 and in the South China Sea, during the whole 

 northeast monsoon season with a peak in the middle 

 of that season. Later in the spring, they move north 

 into the waters of Japan where they appear at about 

 the same time as the albacore do (Nakamura, 1949). 



In the Hawaiian area, striped marlin occur from fall 

 through spring with the seasonal distribution being 



Figure 2.— Areas of high apparent abundance of striped marlin, 1967-69. (After Fisheries Agency of Japan, Research 



Division, 1969-72.) 



138 



