Notes on Bonito — Klawe 
489 
TABLE 1 
SPECIES 
MONTH 
COLLECTED 
PLACE 
SIZE OR STAGE 
REFERENCE 
S', sarda.... 
Jun. 
Mediterranean 
7.2 mm. 
Ehrenbaum, 1924 
S. sarda....... 
Jul. 
Mediterranean 
26.5, 32 mm.* 
de Buen, 1930 
S. sarda............... 
Jun. 
Mediterranean 
eggs and early larvae 
Sanzo, 1932 
S. sarda............... 
Jun. 
Black Sea 
eggs and early larvae 
Vodyanitsky, 1936 
S' sarda 
Mar. 
Gulf of Mexico 
64, 67 mm. 
Klawe and Shimada, 1959 
S. sarda............... 
Feb. 
Western Atlantic 
34 mm. 
Klawe, in press 
S. orientalis 
Apr. 
Japan 
170 mm. 
Kishinouye, 1923 
S. orientalis.. 
Sep. 
Japan 
230 mm. 
Kishinouye, 1923 
* The 17.5 mm. individual represented by de Buen (1930) in figure 1 and originally identified by him as Sarda sarda has 
39 vertebrae and was reidentified by him as Auxis thazard (de Buen, 1932) 
DESCRIPTION AND IDENTIFICATION OF 
LARVAE AND JUVENILES 
Two larvae of total lengths 2.9 and 3.5 mm. 
captured in a plankton tow off Baja California 
(Table 2) have been previously identified as 
those of Sarda by Alhstrom. An illustration of 
the larger specimen is given in Figure 2. These 
larvae have the usual characteristics of larval 
scombroid fishes. When the material was com- 
pared with Sanzo’s ( 1932 ) and Vodyanitsky ’s 
(1936) descriptions and illustrations of larvae 
of S. sarda hatched in the laboratory, the sim- 
ilarity was obvious, although their specimens 
were less advanced in development. Sanzo and 
Vodyanitsky report that their lavae measured 
about 4.3 mm. However, Sanzo and Vodyanit- 
sky were working with fresh material, while 
the planktonic larvae caught off Baja California 
had been preserved in formalin. 
Barnhart’s (1927) observations concerning 
larval bonito are based on material hatched in 
the laboratory from eggs collected in a plank- 
ton net off La Jolla, California. One of the 
striking differences between his description and 
that of S. sarda by Sanzo and Vodyanitsky and 
that of S. cbiliensis by Orton (1953*, 1953#) 
is the absence of melanophores in Barnharts 
material. Barnhart credits the newly hatched bo- 
nito with a few yellow chromatophores; on the 
other hand, Sanzo and Vodyanitsky show that 
in addition to the yellow pigment there are 
melanophores on the eggs just prior to hatch- 
ing and the larvae are also provided with nu- 
merous melanophores. Barnhart based his de- 
scription upon material which probably had 
been preserved in Bonin’s solution, which has 
the property of fading melanine according to 
Orton (1955). 
Fig. 2. A 3-5 mm. Sarda sp. caught on August 12, 1951, off Baja California. 
