98 BULLETIN 189, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



moderately long and narrow, about as long as snout and eye in large 

 specimens, shorter in young; gill rakers long, slender, about as long as 

 eye, difficult to enumerate, apparently not increasing in number with 

 age, about 38 to 48 on lower limb and 35 to 43 on upper limb of first 

 arch; dorsal fin with a nearly straight margin, the longest rays usually 

 failing to reach tip of last one if deflexed, its origin equidistant from 

 base of caudal and some point over anterior half of eye; anal rather 

 small, origin about under tips of last rays of dorsal, its base 5.4 to 

 6.2 in length; ventral inserted a little in advance of origin of dorsal, 

 reaching about halfway to anal, pectoral failing to reach ventral, 

 1.9 to 2.2 in head, 6.0 to 7.4 in length; axillary scale of pectoral long 

 and slender, often failing to reach tip of fin by a distance equal to 

 diameter of pupil, 2.3 to 3.0 in head. 



Color bluish black above ; sides of head and lower two-thirds of side 

 silvery; young under about 80 mm. with a silvery lateral band; caudal 

 largely black; other fins pale. 



More than a hundred specimens, 85 to 140 mm, long, caught in a 

 purse seine at night off Canete by the Mission, are at hand. Speci- 

 mens collected by R. E. Coker at Chimbote and Lobos de Tierra also 

 were examined. The proportions and enumerations are based on 33 

 specimens, unless otherwise stated, ranging in length from 55 to 

 150 mm. 



Immense schools of "anchovetas," apparently consisting chiefly of 

 E. ringens, preyed upon by larger fishes, sea-lions, and birds, have been 

 described by R. E. Coker (1910, p. 338), by R. C. Murphy (in Nichols 

 and Murphy, 1922, p. 505), and by the Mission (1943, pp. 249-268). 

 The publications by R. E. Coker and by the Mission contain state- 

 ments and estimates of the great commercial importance of the 

 "anchovetas," especially as food for the tremendously great flocks of 

 birds occurring on the coast of Peru, which provide the product for 

 the important guano industry of Peru. 



Range. — Coasts of Peru and Chile, at least as far south as Lota. 



Genus ANCHOA Jordan and Evermann, 1927 



Body generally quite elongate, moderately to strongly compressed; 

 maxillary long, extending to or more usually beyond joint of man- 

 dible, always more or less pointed; gill rakers not numerous, usually 

 fewer than 30 on lower limb of first arch, not increasing with age; 

 vertebrae about 38 to 44, rarely 45 or 46 ; origin of anal usually some- 

 where under base of dorsal, occasionally behind it, 



KEY TO THE SPECIES 



a. Anal fin long, with about 32 to 36 rays, its origin under or only a little behind 



that of dorsal panamensis (p, 99) 



aa. Anal shorter, with about 20 to 27 rays, its origin usually under posterior half of 

 base of dorsal. 



