Longevity of Fishes in Captivity 217 



The literature concerning growth and senescence in fishes 

 has been reviewed by Comfort (1956) and Brown (1957) and 

 it is generally agreed that many of the larger teleosts, and 

 perhaps certain sharks, continue to grow throughout life. 

 Most fishes, however, reach their maximum growth, often 

 with sexual maturity, within a limited time. Nevertheless, 

 the growth pattern and lifespan of only a relatively few but 

 well-known species have been established by fishery biologists. 

 The lifespan of the more exotic forms is based mainly on 

 longevity records kept by various aquaria. These, and others, 

 have been summarized by Flower (1925, 1935), Bourliere 

 (1946), and more recently by Hinton (1959, personal com- 

 munication). In 1956 Hinton canvassed twenty institutions 

 in Europe and the United States for information concerning 

 longevity of fishes in attempts to bring these records up-to- 

 date. The New York Aquarium's longevity lists for fishes 

 4 years or over are included in this report as Tables II, III and 

 IV. The data were obtained from published papers by 

 Townsend (1904, 1913, 1928a, b), Mellen (1919, 1925), Breder 

 (1936a), Nigrelli (1940, 19546) and from our own mortality 

 records not previously published. In the most recent listing 

 by Hinton, 325 species had lifespans of 5 years or more and 

 these belong to 88 families. A further analysis of his data 

 shows the following: 64 families contained 93 species with 

 lifespans from 5 to 9 years, 11 months; 43 families contained 

 108 species that lived from 10 to 19 years, 11 months; and 18 

 families contained 28 species that lived more than 20 years. 

 The latter group is listed in Table I. Families with the largest 

 number of species that lived for 5 years or more are Charac- 

 idae, 37 species; Cyprinidae, 39 species; Serranidae, 28 

 species; Sparidae, 12 species and Cichlidae, 17 species. The 

 two orders represented by these families are Cypriniformes 

 and Perciformes. Forty-four of the 88 families are represented 

 by single species and the other families by two to nine species. 



A casual examination of all published lists of long-lived 

 fishes in captivity shows, with few^ exceptions, the following 



