Demersal continental slope fish fauna off WA 
copei, Monomitopus sp. A and Scombrolabrax 
heterolepis. Slope fishes that are abundant on the 
southern temperate Australian mid-slope and 
widely distributed on the west coast (extending 
north beyond Shark Bay) include Centroscymnus 
owstoni, Deania calcea, Diastobranchus capensis, 
Synaphobranchus affinis, S. kaupi, Alepocephalus cf. 
productus, Rouleina guentheri, Neoscopelus 
macrolepidotus, Antimora rostrata, Bathygadus 
cotloides, Cetonurus globiceps, Coryphaenoides 
serrulatus, Neocyttus rhomboidalis and Allocyttus 
verrucosus. 
Many other species which are abundant on the 
temperate Australian mid-slope did not appear to 
occur north of Cape Leeuwin (~35°S). Conspicuous 
by their absence are the species which are 
commercially important in southeastern Australia. 
Hoplostethus allanlicus (orange roughy) and 
Pseudocyttus maculatus (smooth oreo) were even 
scarce in our more southern collections, whilst 
Allocyttus niger (black oreo) was not taken at all. 
DISCUSSION 
The high species richness is the most striking 
feature of the slope fish fauna in this region, and it 
is likely that further sampling with a variety of 
gears would substantially enlarge the number of 
species. Williams et al. (submitted) noted that 
sampling density during this study was low overall 
and that uncommon or aggregated species may 
have been missed. Furthermore, the selectivity of 
large-mesh trawls fitted with heavy ground gear 
most likely undersampled small species and 
groups which retain close contact with the bottom. 
The great abundance of the Macrouridae 
(grenadiers) is also noteworthy. Despite their 
dominance, the group was poorly known in 
Australia at the time of the survey: only 32 of the 
57 Australian species recorded by Paxton et al. 
(1989) were identified. It is apparent from our 
collections that at least 60 species are found on the 
Western Australian slope region (Iwamoto and 
Williams in prep.). 
The west coast fish fauna is a mixture of warm 
and cold water species at all upper and mid-slope 
depths. However, latitudinal separation of tropical 
and sub-tropical species from temperate species is 
less evident as sampling depth increases. On the 
upper-slope (600-800 m) there is a change in the 
top-ranked families between 200 m depth strata, 
whereas on the mid-slope (800-1400 m) the 
Macrouridae, and to a lesser extent, 
Alepocephalidae, Oreosomatidae and 
Synaphobranchidae, are dominant throughout. In 
all strata, except for the 400-600 m stratum, the 
most abundant family accounts for 40-50% of 
individuals. 
These ecological themes are developed in a 
141 
second paper. In that work, the patterns of 
diversity, biomass and assemblage structure of this 
slope fish fauna are discussed and compared to 
others from slope regions off southeastern 
Australia and the northern hemisphere (Williams 
et al. submitted). 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The authors express their gratitude to the 
following experts who provided identifications for 
certain groups of fishes: Drs. Tomio Iwamoto 
(Macrouridae), Yuri Sazonov (Alepocephalidae, 
Platytroctidae and Macrouridae), Barry Hutchins 
(Monacanthidae), Tony Harold (Bregmacerotidae) 
and Hisashi Imamura ( Bembras ). We thank the 
officers, crew and scientific staff of the FRV 
Southern Surveyor for their help during the trawl 
survey and numerous people from the fishing 
industry for the opportunity to sample from their 
fishing vessels. Dave Wright, Dave Evans, Dr Vicki 
Wadley, Dr Sebastian Rainer and Naomi Clear 
(CSIRO) assisted in making collections of fishes 
from commercial fishing vessels; Dave Wright, 
Alastair Graham and Gordon Yearsley (CSIRO), 
Mark McGrouther (AMS), Kevin Smith and Sue 
Morrison (WAM) helped to process and catalogue 
fish specimens; Gordon Yearsley, Karen Gowlett- 
Holmes, Dr Vivienne Mawson (CSIRO) and two 
anonymous referees critically reviewed an earlier 
version of the manuscript. This work was part of a 
project supported by the Fisheries Industries 
Research and Development Committee, Grant 
No.1988/74. 
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