Proceedings of 

 the United States 

 National Museum ^J^^ 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Volume 124 1968 Number 3642 



A New Subspecies of Parrotfish 



Nicholsina ustus collettei 

 from the Eastern Atlantic Ocean 



By Leonard P. Schultz 

 Senior Zoologist, Department of Vertebrate Zoology 



At the time of my review (1958, U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 214, p. 128) 

 of the parrofcfishes (family Scaridae), the genus Nicholsina Fowler had 

 not been reported from the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean; however, 

 among the fishes collected during November and December 1963 by 

 Dr. Bruce B. Collette from the Guinean trawling survey ship La 

 Rafale, there is a fine series of a new subspecies of Nicholsina ustus 

 (Cuvier and Valenciennes) taken off Guinea, the west coast of Africa, 

 from 8°52'N to 9°53'N latitude and 13°48'W to 15°56'W longitude 

 at depths from 20 to 50 meters. The genus Nicholsina, thus, is now 

 known from the eastern and western coastal waters of the Atlantic 

 Ocean and the eastern coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean. 



The specimens collected by Dr. Collette represent an extension of 

 the range of the genus Nicholsina from the western Atlantic into the 

 eastern Atlantic Ocean. This new subspecies is another example of 

 species and subspecies differentiation between the two sides of the 

 Atlantic Ocean, especially for reef-inhabitating and shallow water 

 bottom-dwelling kinds of fishes. 



The genus Nicholsina may be distinguished from other genera of 

 scarid fishes by the following combination of characters: dorsal fin 



