Tarpon, continued 



to the Congo, with reports of occurrence from Ber- 

 muda, the Azores, and the Formigas (Wade 1962, 

 Wade 1969, Twomey and Byrne 1985), but it is most 

 common from Senegal to the Congo (Wade 1969). 



Within Study Area The tarpon occurs from the Rio 

 Grande to Florida Keys with high numbers noted in: 

 south Texas; Calcasieu Lake, Louisiana; Grand Isle, 

 Louisiana; western Florida; the waterways and rivers 

 among the Ten Thousand Islands and the interior 

 waterways of the Florida Keys (Hildebrand 1 963, Wade 

 1969). Greatest densities in the in the U.S. Gulf of 

 Mexico probably occur along the coast of southwest- 

 ern Florida (Shipp 1986) (Table 5.15). 



Life Mode 



Tarpon are known to form schools while feeding 

 (Hildebrand 1963, Harrington 1966). Little information 

 is available on eggs. Early larval forms are pelagic and 

 planktonic, while later larval stages, juveniles, and 

 adults are pelagic and nektonic (Gehringer 1 959, Smith 

 1 980). Adults are known to actively feed both day and 

 night (Wade 1962). 



Habitat 



Type: 



Larvae: Stage I (leptocephali) are found in warm, 

 western Atlantic epipelagic waters north of the equator. 

 They occur in the upper 100 m of water (Wade 1962) 

 in euhaline salinities offshore as far as 250 km in 

 depths ranging from 90 to 1400 m (Gehringer 1959, 

 Wade 1 962, Smith 1 980, Crabtree et al. 1 992). Stage 

 II (shrinking) larvae have been recorded from depths of 

 <1 to 12 m in inshore waters (Erdman 1960, Tagatz 

 1973, Tucker and Hodson 1976). They have been 

 collected in salt marshes, rivers, mangrove swamps, 

 estuaries, and upper reaches of bays as far north as 

 Cape Fear River, North Carolina (Erdman 1960, 

 Harrington and Harrington 1960, Harrington 1966, 

 Tagatz 1 973, Tucker and Hodson 1 976) in mesohaline 

 to euhaline salinities (Wade 1 962, Tagatz 1 973, Tucker 

 and Hodson 1976). The stage III (growing) larvae are 

 found along beaches in lagoons, salt marshes, tidal 

 ponds and potholes, and tidal rivers and canals 

 (Harrington 1958, Harrington 1960, Wade 1962, 

 Hildebrand 1963, Jones etal. 1978). They occur rarely 

 as far north as North Carolina (Tucker and Hodson 

 1 976). Juveniles are recovered from salinities ranging 

 from freshwater to hypersaline (Breder 1944, Gunter 

 1 945, Simpson 1 954, Tabband Manning 1 961 , Rickards 

 1 968, Randall 1 959, Wade 1 969, Franks 1 970, Kushlan 

 and Lodge 1974, Marwitz 1986). Smaller juveniles 

 occur in shallow streams, lakes, marshes, lagoons, 

 ponds, ditches, canals, rivers, estuaries, mangrove 

 swamps, pools, and drainage ditches nearly or com- 

 pletely landlocked except for periods of extreme high 

 water, also in headwaters of small freshwater streams 



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