18 
Fishery Bulletin 11 6(1) 
cohorts could also influence the seasonal analysis of 
catch. Given the growth curve proposed by Zuniga- 
Flores (2009), dolphinfish of the small-size class would 
be less than 3 months old, the medium-size individuals 
would be between 3 and 6 months old, and the large 
fish would be more than 6 months old. Substantial dif¬ 
ferences have been found in size at first maturity for 
one of the species in our study for Coryphaena hippu¬ 
rus, dolphinfish, in the southern part of our study area 
(Gulf of Tehuantepec); the dolphinfish matures at ~5Q 
cm in fork length (FL) (Alejo-Plata et ah, 2011), and in 
the central part (southern tip of the BCP), at around 
80 cm FL (Zuniga-Flores et al., 2011). Dolphinfish of 
the small-size class would then probably be all imma¬ 
ture individuals; the medium- and large-size class of 
fish could be a mixture of mature and immature fish. 
If we assume that large-size class of fish are mature 
fish, a large number of potential spawners should have 
been present during October in the study area. Fol¬ 
lowing the hypothesis of Kraul (1999), we could expect 
a high abundance of juveniles for the first months of 
the following year—a pattern that was not fully clear 
and needs to be investigated; it is worth noting that all 
these published works refer mainly to only one species, 
the common dolphinfish, and therefore these inferences 
are made for that particular species. 
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