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Fishery Bulletin 99(1 ) 
Age (days) 
Figure 3 
Observed ages (days) versus fork length (mm), and predicted fork length (mm) for H. jaguana off West Palm Beach and in 
Tampa Bay, Florida. (A) West Palm Beach females; (B) West Palm Beach males; (C ) West Palm Beach pooled sex; (D) Tampa 
Bay females; (E) Tampa Bay males; and (F) Tampa Bay pooled sex. The extended size range in the pooled samples was due to 
the inclusion of immature juveniles specimens of indeterminable sex. The dashed lines are upper and lower 95% confidence 
levels. 
injected fish was 141 days and ages varied from 125 to 165 
days and lengths varied from 56 to 78 mm FL. Age esti- 
mated from 17 sagittae (41 to 131 mm FL) by using a SEM 
compared with transmitted light was not significantly dif- 
ferent from zero (paired t=0.397, P>0.05). 
Harengula jaguana grow rapidly and live little more 
than a year (Table 2; Fig. 3, A-F). Observed ages varied 
from 141 to 370 days for males and from 149 to 335 days 
for females. Growth rates (slope) were not significantly 
different for males and females in either West Palm Beach 
(ANCOVA, F=0.29, df=l, 30, P=0.595) or in Tampa Bay 
(ANCOVA, F=3.24, df=l, 118, P=0.074). Intercepts were 
also not significantly different in either West Palm Beach 
(ANCOVA, F=2.71, df=l, 31, P=0.109) or in Tampa Bay 
(ANCOVA, F=0.98, df=l, 119, P=0.325); therefore the data 
were pooled for each coast. Pooled growth rates (immature 
and adult) for Tampa Bay were significantly different from 
West Palm Beach (ANCOVA, F=6.09, df=l, 249, P=0.014). 
Combined commercial purse-seine and cast-net length- 
frequency databases showed multiple juvenile recruitment 
peaks between June and November 1993 in Tampa Bay 
and between June and August 1992 from West Palm Beach 
(Fig. 4, A-B). Growth rates estimated from cohort length 
frequencies in Tampa Bay from February 1993 to May 
1993 (spawned in September 1992) showed growth from 
85 mm to 135 mm FL over 90 days, an average growth 
rate of 0.55 mm/day. A similar rate was obtained for fish 
at 45-mm mode in July 1993 (spawned in April 1993) that 
grew 125 mm FL by December 1993, a period of 150 days 
producing an average growth rate of 0.53 mm/day. 
Discussion 
Polished transverse sections of H. jaguana otoliths allowed 
enumeration of age in days. Houde et al. (1974) reported 
