456 
NOAA 
National Marine 
Fisheries Service 
Abstract— The Argentine sea bass 
(. Acanthistius patachonicus ) is one of 
the most conspicuous and abundant 
species in the rocky-reef fish assem- 
blage of Northern Patagonia, which 
sustains important recreational 
and commercial activities, such as 
scuba diving, hook-and-line fish- 
ing, and spear fishing. We describe 
the morphological features of eggs, 
larvae, and posttransition juveniles 
of A. patachonicus and summarize 
abundance and distribution data 
for larvae collected on the Argen- 
tine shelf (between ~40°S and 44°S). 
Eggs and yolk-sac larvae came from 
an in vitro fertilization experiment. 
Larger larvae were distinguished by 
relevant morphological features, in- 
cluding the development of the oper- 
cular complex and head spination, 
meristics, and pigmentation pattern. 
The early stages of A. patachonicus 
are similar to those of the koester 
(A. sebastoides) and of the western 
wirrah (A. serratus ), the other 2 spe- 
cies of Acanthistius whose larval de- 
velopment has been described. The 
body and head in A. patachonicus 
were moderate in size, but its pre- 
anal length was long. The particular 
head spination pattern of larvae of 
A. patachonicus , namely a few con- 
spicuous smooth spines (mainly on 
the preopercle and opercle), and 2 
posttemporal spines, was useful for 
differentiating this species from oth- 
ers and, therefore, made it possible 
to describe the whole developmental 
series and to link the early stage 
morphological features to those of 
adults. 
Manuscript submitted 5 November 2014. 
Manuscript accepted 18 August 2015. 
Fish. Bull. 113:456-467 (2015). 
Online publication date: 10 September 2015. 
doi: 10.7755/FB. 113.8 
The views and opinions expressed or 
implied in this article are those of the 
author (or authors) and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Fishery Bulletin 
& established 1881 
Spencer F. Baird 
First U S. Commissioner 
of Fisheries and founder 
of Fishery Bulletin 
Early life history of the Argentine sea bass 
( Acanthistius patachonicus ) (Pisces: Serranidae) 
Lujan Villanueva Gomila (contact author ) 1 
Martin D. Ehrlich 2 3 
Leonardo A. Venerus 1 
Email address for contact author: gomila@cenpat-conicet.gob.ar 
1 Centro Nacional Patagonico (CENPAT) 
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientfficas y Tecnicas (CONICET) 
Boulevard Brown 2915 
Puerto Madryn 
Chubut, U9120ACD Argentina 
2 Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo Pesquero (INIDEP) 
P.O. Box 175 
Mar del Plata 
Buenos Aires, B7602HSA Argentina 
3 Instituto de Ecologfa, Genetica y Evolucion de Buenos Aires (IEGEBA) 
CONICET 
Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales 
Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) 
Intendente Guiraldes 2160 
Ciudad Universitaria 
Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires, C1428EGA Argentina 
The genus Acanthistius, included in 
the speciose family Serranidae (Nel- 
son, 2006; but see Smith and Craig, 
2007), is represented by 2 species in 
the Southwest Atlantic Ocean: Acan- 
thistius brasilianus, which ranges 
from 15°S (Brazil) to 36°S (Uruguay) 
(Irigoyen et ah, 2008) and Acanthis- 
tius patachonicus, which ranges from 
23°S in Brazil to 48°S on the Argen- 
tine shelf (Irigoyen et ah, 2008), at 
depths of 0-100 m (Cousseau and 
Perrotta, 2000). Until recently, A. 
patachonicus was misclassified as A. 
brasilianus , giving rise to a nomen- 
clatural confusion in the ichthyologi- 
cal literature from Argentina. Irigoy- 
en et al. (2008) clarified the taxonom- 
ic status of the species of Acanthis- 
tius in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean 
and developed a new diagnostic key 
to discriminate between these taxa. 
Acanthistius patachonicus is the 
most abundant rocky-reef fish in 
Northern Patagonia (Galvan et al., 
2009), where it sustains commercial, 
recreational, and sport activities like 
scuba diving and hook-and-line and 
spear fishing. In offshore waters, it 
is caught by coastal and high-seas 
fleets, partly as bycatch in fisheries 
that target Argentine hake ( Mer - 
luccius hubbsi) and Argentine red 
shrimp ( Pleoticus muelleri). Commer- 
cial annual landings of A. patachoni- 
cus decreased between 1989 (14,509 
metric tons) and 2013 (2462 metric 
tons) (MAGYP 1 ). 
Despite the large economic and 
recreational values of this species, 
there is little information about its 
reproductive ecology and behavior. 
1 MAGYP (Ministerio de Agricultura, Ga- 
naderia y Pesca). 2013. Total landings 
of marine catch by species and month. 
Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganaderia y 
Pesca, Argentina. [Available at web- 
site, accessed November 2014.] 
