spawning grounds of belone and albidus indicates 

 that these species are at least 2,000 miles apart at 

 spawning time. T. albidus and T. pfluegeri broadly 

 overlap geographically, but whether georgei occurs 

 in the western Atlantic is unclear. 



Fishermen, particularly those working in the Gulf 

 of Mexico, have described a fish they term a hatchet 

 marlin in reference to the high and squarish anterior 

 lobe of its dorsal fin. D.P. de Sylva has discussed 

 this fish at this conference and has shown color 

 slides provided by Robert Ewing of Monroe. 

 Louisiana. I have also studied a series of black and 

 white negatives of this fish. The shape of the first 

 dorsal is dramatically like that in georgei (see Figure 

 1) and the scales appear large and rounded. How- 

 ever, the spinous dorsal and first anal fins appear 

 much higher in the fish from the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Certainly it appears that the hatchet marlin and the 

 roundscale spearfish are closely related, if not iden- 

 tical, but no specimens of the former have ever been 

 studied by scientists, and among contemporary 

 biologists, only the writer has seen specimens of 

 georgei. This species needs publicity in game-fish 

 circles, with arrangements made to freeze specimens 

 and bring them to the attention of appropriate scien- 

 tists for study. This also calls attention to the grow- 

 ing need to provide contingency funds to preserve 

 and ship such specimens, or to provide travel funds 

 for scientists to the specimens when such rarities are 

 caught by anglers. 



Reproduction. All three of the known females 

 were in a refractory state with no developed ova. 

 They were collected 27 May, 9 August and 5 Oc- 

 tober. All were adults and this slim evidence may be 

 taken to indicate that in georgei, like its Atlantic 

 congeners, spawning is over by early summer. The 

 only male, collected 2 August, still had fairly large 

 testes but was not in spawning condition. 



Nothing else is known of the bionomics and life 

 history of the species. 



An additional species ofTetrapturus is shown to 

 exist in the northeastern part of the Atlantic Ocean 

 and in the Mediterranean Sea. The name Tetrap- 

 turus georgei Lowe, previously regarded as uniden- 

 tifiable, is applied to this species. The nomenclature 

 is discussed in detail, and reasons for so restricting 

 and applying this name are given. 



The species is described on the basis of study of 

 three females and one male, all adults. Morphomet- 

 ric data are available for three, one having been 

 mutilated in a way that such data were unusable. T. 

 georgei is contrasted with the other Atlantic species 



of Tetrapturus: T. belone, T. pfluegeri, and T. al- 

 bidus. 



The possibility that the specimens of georgei 

 represent hybrids between other species is discussed 

 and rejected. 



Known information on distribution and reproduc- 

 tion are summarized. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



Many persons have aided the University of 

 Miami's long-term program on billfishes, and the trip 

 to southern Europe in particular involved much 

 cooperation with local biologists, fishermen, and of- 

 ficials. Their names are documented in detail by 

 Robins and de Sylva (1960, 1963). Special thanks are 

 due the late John K. Howard for his persistent sup- 

 port of billfish research and to Raimondo Sara, Rui 

 Monteiro, and Julio Rodriguez-Roda for their con- 

 siderable help in Sicily, Portugal, and Spain respec- 

 tively. 



LITERATURE CITED 



ALBUQUERQUE, R.M. 



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 United States and Canada (third edition). Am. Fish. Soc, 

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 CUVIER, G.. and A. VALENCIENNES. 



1831. Histoire Naturelle des Poissons. Paris 8:i-xix, 1-509. 

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1940. Speciation of fishes. Am. Nat. 74:198-211. 

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 LOWE. R.T. 



1840. On new species of fishes from Madeira. Proc. Zool. 

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1841. Description of some new species of Madeiran fishes, 

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1849. Supplement to "A synopsis of the fishes of Maderia". 



Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond. 3:1-20. 

 OVCHINNIKOV. V.V. 



1970. Swordfish and billfishes in the Atlantic Ocean. Ecology 



and functional morphology. Atl. Sci. Res. Inst. Fish. 



Oceanogr., 77 p. (Translated by Israel Program Sci. 



Transl., 1971, 77 p; available U.S. Dep. Commer., Natl. 



Tech. Inf. Serv., Springfield, VA, as TT71-50011.) 

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1810. Caratteri di alcuni nuovi generi e nuove specie di ani- 



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