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EYE-FORK LENGTH (cm) 



Figure 6. — Plotted regressions of pectoral fin length on 

 eye-forii length of striped marlin by sex and locality. 

 BV = Buena Vista, M = Mazatlan, SD=San Diego. 



than was available to them (they had data on nine 

 specimens from the coast of Peru). Body length for 

 the Atlantic specimens was measured as fork 

 length. In order to have the data comparable to our 

 data, it was necessary to convert eye-fork length of 

 our samples to fork length with the appropriate 

 equation in Table 3. 



Maximum body depth, length of pectoral fm, 

 length of pelvic fin, and dorsal fin height were ex- 

 amined (Fig. 4). Analysis of covariance was not 

 used to test for significant differences in these 

 characters between Atlantic and eastern Pacific 

 sailfish because of the complication of one set of 

 data being based on converted lengths. However, 

 we feel from visual inspection that there is sufficient 

 separation between the regressions (especially the 

 first three) to suggest that eastern Pacific sailfish 

 differ significantly from Atlantic sailfish in mor- 

 phometric measurements. More information based 

 on a wide range of sizes of fish from the Atlantic 

 and Pacific is needed for a more complete compari- 

 sion. 



STRIPED MARLIN 



The eastern Pacific is apparently a center of high 

 concentration of striped marlin. Considerable num- 

 bers of fish are annually caught by the commercial 



longline fleet and by sportsmen. In 1967-70 we 

 sampled 2,020 specimens from the sport landings 

 at Buena Vista, Mazatlan, and San Diego. Length 

 frequencies of the samples are shown in Figure 5. 



Location and Sex Differences 



Regressions of each meristic and morphometric 

 character as a function of eye-fork length are shown 

 in Table 9. Analysis of covariance was performed 

 on the data, sexes separate, to determine whether 

 the regressions were significantly different among 

 locations. The results (Table 6) indicated that the 

 regressions were different. Analysis of covariance 

 was also used to determine whether the relations 

 were significantly different between sexes, within 

 location. The results (Table 10) for this series of 

 tests showed either no differences or inconsistency 

 from one location to another, except for the relation 

 of length of pectoral fin on eye-fork length. For this 

 relation, significant differences between sexes were 

 found at all three locations. The regressions are 

 shown in Figure 6. On the basis of these results, 

 except for pectoral fin length, it was assumed that 

 there is no significant difference between sexes, but 

 a significant difference among locations. The data 

 were pooled accordingly and regressions recalcu- 

 lated (Table 11). 



A plot of weight on eye-fork length for striped 

 marlin from each location (Fig. 7) shows that for a 

 given length, striped marlin from San Diego were 

 heavier than fish from Buena Vista or Mazatlan. 



Table 10. — Results of covariance analysis of morphomet- 

 ric character of striped marlin as a function of eye-fork 

 length to test whether the relations are significantly dif- 

 ferent between sexes, (n.s. = not significant; * = 5% 

 significance level; ** = 1% significance level). 



117 



