specimen. Sella (1911) confirmed Sanzo's (1910) 

 work. Regan (1909) pointed out the resemblance of a 

 young Xiphias (200 mm in length) to the fossil 

 species Blochius longirostris. Regan (1924) de- 

 scribed and figured this 200-mm juvenile and noted 

 that Phaethonichthys tuberculatus Nichols. 1923, is 

 actually a young swordfish and placed it in the 

 synonymy of A", gladius. Fowler (1928) also figured 

 a young swordfish (ca. 225 mm) and like Regan 

 (1924) noted that P. tuberculatus Nichols was a 

 synonym of X. gladius. Therefore, by early in the 

 century the young stages of swordfish were well 

 described. Later accounts which include descrip- 

 tions of young swordfish are Arata (1954); Yabe 

 (1951); Yabe, Ueyanagi, Kikawa, and Watanabe 

 (1959); Jones (1958); Nakamura et al. (1951); Gor- 

 bunova (1969); Taning (1955); and Tibbo and 

 Lauzier (1969). 



Several authors have described a few specimens 

 of istiophorids (presumed sailfish) prior to descrip- 

 tions of complete series. These descriptions are by 

 Uchida (1937); Nakamura (1932, 1940, 1942, 1949): 

 La Monte and Marcy (1941); Baughman (1941); 

 Beebe (1941); and Deraniyagala (1936, 1952). Com- 

 plete series of larval through juvenile stages of sail- 

 fish were both published in 1953. One by Voss(1953) 

 was based on Atlantic specimens, the other by Yabe 

 (1953) was based on Pacific specimens. Following 

 these two publications, several papers also de- 

 scribed sailfish based on complete series or else give 

 important data on young forms. These studies are by 

 Ueyanagi and Watanabe (1962. 1964); Gehringer 

 (1956, 1971); Jones (1959); Jones and Kumaran 

 (1964); de Sylva (1963); Ueyanagi (1963b); Arnold 

 (1955); Springer and Hoese (1958); Mito (1966, 

 1967); Sun' (1960); Laurs and Nishimoto ( 1970); and 

 Strasburg (1970). 



Most of the work on identification of young stages 

 of istiophorids other than sailfish has been done by 

 Japanese scientists, particularly Dr. Shoji Ueyanagi 

 on Pacific species. Ueyanagi (1957) demonstrated 

 that Kajikia formosana (Hirasaka and Nakamura) 

 was actually the young of the striped marlin, T. 

 audax. He (Ueyanagi, 1959) also described a com- 

 plete series of striped marlin young ranging in length 

 from 2.9 to 21.2 mm in standard length. Nakamura 

 (1968) described the youngjuveniles of this species. 



The larvae of shortbill spearfish. T. angustiros- 

 tris, were described by Ueyanagi in two papers 

 (1960b. 1962) followed by a description of a juvenile 

 by Watanabe and Ueyanagi (1963). 



A larva of the black marlin, M. indica, was first 



mentioned by Ueyanagi and Yabe (1959), then de- 

 scribed by them in a subsequent paper (1960). Smal- 

 ler larvae were reported later in that year by 

 Ueyanagi (1960a). 



Larvae of the Pacific blue marlin, M. mazara, 

 were described by Ueyanagi and Yabe (1959). At- 

 lantic blue marlin (M. nigricans) larvae were first 

 described by Gehringer (1956), although he sug- 

 gested that they were T. belone. Ueyanagi (1959) 

 suggested that they were in fact M. nigricans. 

 Juveniles of M. nigricans have been subsequently 

 described by de Sylva (1958), Caldwell (1962), 

 Eschmeyer and Bullis (1968), and Bartlett and Haed- 

 rich (1968). Ueyanagi (1957) described the juvenile 

 stage of M. mazara. 



The larvae of white marlin, T. albidus, have yet to 

 be described, although Ueyanagi (1959) suspected 

 that some of Gehringer's (1956) sailfish larvae may 

 be the larvae of this species. De Sylva (1963) de- 

 scribed a juvenile white marlin and a photograph of a 

 7 1 /i-inch juvenile has been published (Florida Board 

 of Conservation, 1968). Ueyanagi, Kikawa, Uto, 

 and Nishikawa (1970) plot the distribution of white 

 marlin larvae, but do not describe their features. 



Larvae of T. pfluegeri and T. georgei have not 

 been described, although Robins and de Sylva (1963) 

 described a large juvenile of the former species. 

 Sparta (1953, 1961) has briefly described the eggs 

 and young of T. belone. 



A number of summary papers have been written 

 which discuss the identification of young billfishes. 

 These are La Monte ( 1955); Padoa (1956); Jones and 

 Kumaran (1964); Ueyanagi and Watanabe (1962, 

 1964); Strasburg (1970); Howard and Ueyanagi 

 (1965); Ueyanagi (1963a and b); and Ueyanagi 

 (1964). The last includes an excellent account for 

 identifying young Indo-Pacific species. 



To summarize the published work to date on the 

 identification of young billfishes, the following 

 stages have been described: eggs, larvae, and 

 juveniles of X. gladius; the larvae and juveniles of 

 all the Indo-Pacific istiophorids with the exception 

 of juvenile black marlin; larvae and juveniles of At- 

 lantic sailfish; juveniles of Atlantic blue marlin; 

 juveniles of the white marlin; ajuvenile of the west- 

 ern Atlantic longbill spearfish; and the eggs and a 

 few young specimens of the Mediterranean spear- 

 fish. Nothing has been published on the young of 

 the roundscale spearfish. 



IDENTIFICATION METHODS 

 There is no problem in separating young swordfish 



64 



