Colmenero et a!.: Reproductive biology of Lophius budegassa in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea 
397 
Figure 4 
Maturity ogives used to estimate length at maturity 
(L 50 ) for (A) male and < B ) female Black Anglerfish 
(Lophius budegassa ) collected from the northwestern 
Mediterranean Sea between June 2007 and December 
2010 . 
ovary sections were not observed (AISTOVA, F(2 j 42)=0-002, 
P-G.998). Batch fecundity’ ranged between 37,569 and 
393,986 oocytes, and mean BF was 218,020 oocytes (stan- 
dard error of the mean [SE] 90,018). Relative batch fe- 
cundity was estimated at 102 (SE 20) oocytes per gram 
of female (GW), and mean potential fecundity was 78,929 
(SE 13,648) oocytes per kilogram of mature female. 
Batch fecundity'’ tended to increase linearly with 
TL (linear regression, coefficient of determination 
[r 2 ]=0.89, Fx j x 3=106.57, P<0.001), TW (linear regres- 
sion, r 2 =G.82, F\ ; i3=60.79, PcO.QOl), and GW (linear re- 
gression, r 2 =0.82, ^1,13=59.31, PcO.OOl), indicating that 
fecundity is dependent on size and body weight (Fig. 6). 
No significant correlation was found between RBF and 
TL, indicating that RBF is not size dependent (linear 
regression, r 2 =0.16, Fi, 13=2. 50, P=0.138). 
Discussion 
This study indicates that oocyte development and the 
fecundity pattern of Black Anglerfish are similar to 
findings for other species of Lophius: White Angler- 
100 800 1200 1600 
Oocyte diameter (pm) 
Figure 5 
Size-frequency distributions of oocyte diameters at each 
phase of gonad maturity of Black Anglerfish ( Lophius 
budegassa) collected from the northwestern Mediterra- 
nean Sea between June 2007 and December 2010. The 
5 maturity phases are (A) phase I, immature, n=961; 
(B) phase II, developing or regenerating, n. = 1 1 0 6 ; (C) 
phase III, spawning capable, «=1046; (D) phase IV, ac- 
tively spawning, n=381; (E) phase V, regressing, n= 934. 
fish (e.g., Fulton, 1898), Cape Monk (Leslie and Grant, 
1990), Goosefish (Armstrong et al., 1992) and Yellow 
Goosefish (Yoneda et al., 2001). The eggs of Black An- 
glerfish appear to be shed as a part of a single event 
and are likely released only once during the spawn- 
ing season — the pattern of a total spawner. This type 
of spawning has been observed also in Goosefish (e.g., 
Feinberg, 1984) and White Anglerfish (Afonso-Dias and 
Hislop, 1996), although the possibility of spawning sev- 
eral batches over the spawning season is not unfeasible 
because this behavior has been described for Yellow 
Goosefish (Yoneda et al., 2001). 
Batch fecundity estimates for Black Anglerfish re- 
veal a positive relationship between number of oocytes 
