FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 76, NO 1 



Sciences, San Francisco); FMNH (Field Museum 

 of Natural History, Chicago); LACM (Los Angeles 

 County Museum of Natural History); MCZ 

 (Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard Uni- 

 versity); MNHN (Museum National d'Histoire 

 Naturelle, Paris); MPIP (Museu de Pesca do In- 

 stituto de Pesca, Santos); MZUSP (Museu de 

 Zoologia da Universidade de Sao Paulo); NHMV 

 (Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna); NMC (Na- 

 tional Museum of Canada, Ottawa); RMNH 

 (Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden); 

 ROM (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto); SIO 

 (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla); 

 SU (Stanford University, specimens now at CAS); 

 UDONECI (Universidad de Oriente, Nueva Es- 

 parta, Centro de Investigaciones, Venezuela); UF 

 (Florida State Museum, University of Florida, 

 Gainesville); UMML (Rosenstiel School of Atmos- 

 pheric and Marine Science, University of Miami); 

 USNM (National Museum of Natural History, 

 Washington, D.C.); ZMA (Zoological Museum, 

 Amsterdam); ZMH (Zoologisches Institut und 

 Zoologisches Museum, Hamburg); ZMK (Zoologi- 

 cal Museum, Copenhagen). 



SERRA SPANISH MACKEREL 



S comber omor us brasiliensis n.sp. 



Diagnosis. — A spotted species of Spanish mack- 

 erel without a dip in the lateral line, without 

 scales covering the pectoral fins, with a moderate 

 number of vertebrae (47-49, usually 48) and gill 

 rakers (12-16, usually 13-15), and with a short 

 pelvic fin (3.6-5.9'7f FL). 



Scomberomorus brasiliensis is most closely re- 

 lated to S. sierra Jordan and Starks of the eastern 

 tropical Pacific and more distantly to S. maculatus 

 (Mitchill) of the western Atlantic and to S. tritor 

 (Cuvier) of the eastern Atlantic. It differs from S. 



maculatus in having fewer vertebrae (47-49 com- 

 pared with 50-53, Table 1). 



Morphometrically, S. brasiliensis differs from 

 its four closest relatives in having a much shorter 

 pelvic fin (Figure 1): 3.56-5.86, X = 4.53% FL com- 

 pared with S. sierra (4.71-6.37, x = 5.51), S. 

 maculatus (4.59-5.76, x = 5.71), S. tritor (4.97- 

 7.14, X = 5.07), and S. regalis (4.41-6.33, 

 3c = 5.54). The linear regression ofpelvic fin length 

 on fork length was tested by analysis of 

 covariance. The slopes of the regression lines of all 

 five species were not significantly different at the 

 0.01 level of significance (Table 2). The elevations 

 of the five regression lines were significantly dif- 

 ferent at the 0.001 level (P< 1.0 X 10 ■'). The Stu- 

 dent Newman-Keules multiple range test indi- 

 cates that the elevations of the regression lines for 

 S. sierra, S. maculatus, S. tritor, and S. regalis 

 were not significantly different (P>0.2); however, 

 S. brasiliensis was found to be different from the 

 other four species (P<0.001). Data from S. 

 maculatus, S. sierra, S. tritor, and S. regalis were 

 resubmitted to analysis of covariance after re- 

 moval of S. brasiliensis. This reduced the calcu- 

 lated F from 54.72 to 6.79 showing that most of the 

 variance was caused by inclusion of S. brasiliensis 

 with four other more or less homogeneous species. 



Table 2. — Regression equations of pelvic fin length on fork 

 length for five species of Scomberomorus. 



Description. — Lateral line without a prominent 

 dip in the region of the second dorsal fin (present 

 only in S. cavalla among American and Atlantic 



Table l. — Numbers of precaudal, caudal, and total vertebrae in five species of Scomberomorus. 



Species 



S tritor (E Atlantic) 



S. brasiliensis (W, Atlantic): 



Central and northern 

 South America 



Brazil 

 S, sierra (E, Pacific): 



Mexico 



Central and South America 

 S, maculatus (W. Atlantic): 



Eastern United States 



Gulf of Mexico 

 S. regalis (Caribbean) 



Precaudal 



Caudal 



Total 



18 19 20 21 22 N 



26 27 28 29 30 31 32 N 



45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 N 



6 30 



24 

 2 59 



2 14 

 16 



36 18.8 



26 20 1 

 62 200 



18 



17 



23 4 27 



16 2 18 



5 47 2 54 



20,0 

 20.1 



21.1 

 21.1 

 19.9 



2 30 4 



4 21 



6 53 



3 12 

 3 13 



5 36 



1 

 13 



9 

 10 



36 27 1 6 29 1 



25 

 62 



18 

 17 



28 

 18 

 54 



27.8 

 280 



28,0 

 279 



30 7 

 30.3 

 28.1 



3 21 

 8 50 



2 14 

 2 14 



4 42 



5 20 3 28 51,9 



19 7 1 18 51.4 



9 55 48.1 



274 



