Munroe and Ross: Distribution and life history of Citharichthys gymnorhmus and C. cornutus 
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at 41°33'N, 54°55'W (MCZ 77935) and 41°05'N, 66°31'W 
(Scott and Scott, 1988; Fahay, 2007). 
The geographical distribution reported here is largely 
consistent with that known for the species as reported 
in Fahay (2007), but it is different from range informa- 
tion contained in literature accounts published during 
the last half of the 20 th century. Goode (1880) first 
reported C. cornutus (as C. unicornis) from the western 
North Atlantic from two stations located on the outer 
continental shelf south of Rhode Island (40°02'54"N, 
70°23'40"W and 40°02'36"N, 70°22'58"W). This capture 
site, actually off New Jersey (Fowler, 1952), is located 
on the shelf between the head of Alvin Submarine 
Canyon (40°00'N, 70°30'W) and a feature called “The 
Mud Patch” located just to the northwest of the canyon. 
The same distributional information for the species 
(deep waters of the Gulf Stream off Rhode Island) was 
reported by Jordan and Gilbert (1883) and Jordan and 
Goss (1889) from the data presented in the original 
description of the species by Goode (1880). Gunther 
(1887) also listed this locality for C. unicornis on the 
basis of Goode’s specimens. Fowler (1952) again listed 
C. cornutus among fishes of New Jersey on the basis of 
“offshore records” that most likely refer to specimens 
contained in Goode’s (1880) original description of C. 
unicornis, because no other specimens were listed to 
indicate otherwise. In their treatise on deep-sea fishes, 
Goode and Bean (1895) again repeated the same dis- 
tributional information for the syntypes of C. unicornis 
captured on the outer shelf off northern New Jersey, 
but they also provided data for additional specimens 
taken off South Carolina (33°18'N, 77°07'W) and in 
the Gulf of Mexico (28'36-38'N, 85°52-53'W). These 
new specimens increased the knowledge about the geo- 
graphic distribution of this species along the south- 
east continental shelf of the United States. Although 
Goode and Bean also reported C. unicornis from the 
Straits of Florida off the Florida Keys (24°25'45"N, 
81'46'W), re-examination of these specimens from RV 
Albatross station 2318 (USNM 45610; USNM 45677; 
USNM 143120) and RV Albatross station 2316 (USNM 
129946) revealed they are not C. cornutus, but rather 
are C. gymnorhinus (see data summaries below for 
that species). 
Scott and Scott (1988) considered their record of a 
larval C. cornutus, taken at 41°05'N, 66°31'W in 1982, 
to represent the northernmost point of the range of the 
species. They also considered that larvae of this spe- 
cies reported from the vicinity of the Canadian Atlan- 
tic are most likely strays from more southern locales. 
They missed earlier references documenting adults from 
the outer shelf region at 40°N and cited Georgia as 
the northern limit for the species following informa- 
tion in Tucker (1982). Other larval C. cornutus known 
from this general area (MCZ fish collection), including 
Georges Bank (Fahay, 2007), indicate the possibility 
that larvae caught in this region could also be produced 
by more localized spawning of C. cornutus. FishBase 
(Froese and Pauly, 2010; www.fishbase.org) also shows 
the western North Atlantic distribution of this species 
as Canada to Georgia based on the larva reported in 
Scott and Scott (1988). 
Additional records of this species from off the south- 
eastern coast of the United States and nearby areas 
include those in an unpublished dissertation by Staiger 
(1970), who detailed distribution of this species in the 
Straits of Florida region based on 143 specimens. He 
reported that C. cornutus occurs along the continental 
margin of the Straits from off the Dry Tortugas to 
Miami, also in the central Straits near the Cay Sal 
Bank, and along the insular margin of the Straits from 
the Santaren Channel to the Little Bahama Bank. 
Quattrini and Ross (2006) caught this species on the 
continental shelf off North Carolina but provided no 
further comments on the distribution of the species 
(because their specimens are included in the present 
study). Eight specimens of C. cornutus have also been 
taken at two locations off Puerto Rico (Evermann and 
Marsh, 1902; this study) and off the northern coast of 
Cuba near Provincia de Matanzas (Vergara Rodriguez, 
1974). Cervigon (1996) recorded the species from off 
Venezuela but indicated that it is poorly documented 
from this area. 
Other studies published during the last century con- 
tained more general, and often vague, information or 
commentary on the distribution of this species. For 
example, Jordan and Evermann (1898) listed it as oc- 
curring in deep waters of the Gulf Stream. Parr (1931) 
did not report any specific capture information for the 
approximately 68 specimens (largest series examined 
to that date) in his study. Instead, he mentioned that 
although very little was known about the distribution of 
C. cornutus, it was generally regarded as occurring in 
deep waters of the Gulf Stream. Norman (1934) consid- 
ered C. cornutus to have a disjunct distribution with a 
northern range in deep waters of the Gulf Stream and 
a southern distribution off the coast of Brazil. Longley 
and Hildebrand (1941) reported the species as occurring 
in the Gulf Stream from the Dry Tortugas to at least 
off the southeast coast of New England (presumably 
from earlier literature records off New Jersey). Topp 
and Hoff (1972) listed this as a deepwater species in 
the Gulf of Mexico. Lyczkowski- Shultz and Bond (2006) 
described the range of C. cornutus as the Atlantic and 
Gulf coasts of the United States, without specifying any 
geographic limits. In a summary of distributional in- 
formation for C. cornutus, Gutherz (1967) reported that 
its geographic range included the outer continental shelf 
along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States 
from Georgia to Texas, the Bahamas, the Greater An- 
tilles, off Yucatan, Mexico, throughout the Caribbean, 
and off the Atlantic coast of South America to Brazil. 
Although Gutherz (1967) adequately summarized cap- 
ture locations for the species in the middle portions 
(extreme southeastern United States, Gulf of Mexico, 
and Caribbean Sea) of its geographic range, he did not 
mention previous captures of the species from north of 
Georgia. 
Beginning with Gutherz (1967), captures of adult C. 
cornutus from off New Jersey (Goode, 1880; and cited 
