First Records of a Scorpionfish, Scorpaenodes albaiensis, from East Asia, with a Synopsis of S. minor (Actinopterygii: Scorpaeniformes: Scorpaenidae)

Abstract

The Indo-Pacific scorpionfish Scotpaenodes albaiensis (Evermann and Seale, 1907), for which the Philippines was previously the northernmost record, is recorded from East Asia (Taiwan and Japan) for the first time on the basis of 16 specimens. Speeimens from Taiwan and Japan previously identified as S, minor (Smith, 1958) are shown to include the closely related species S. albaiensis as well, The East Asian specimens of S, agbaiensis are described, and comparisons of the two species are made on the basis of Indo-Paeific specimens,

First Japanese Records of the Indo-Pacific Scorpionfish (Scorpaenidae) <i>Scorpaenodes corallinus</i>, with a Re-evaluation of Coronal Spines as a Diagnostic Character

“…Scorpaenodes corallinus differs from other Indo-Pacific congeners in having nasal spines [vs. absent in S. albaiensis (Evermann and Seale, 1907), S. bathycolus Erdmann, 2012, andS. minor (Smith, 1958) (Motomura et al 2009;Allen and Erdmann 2012b)], the underside of the head without scales [vs. scaled in S. tribulosus Eschmeyer, 1969(Eschmeyer 1969bEschmeyer and Rama Rao 1972)], more than 41 scale rows in the longitudinal series [vs. fewer than 35 scale rows in S. hirsutus (Smith, 1957) andS. kelloggi (Jenkins, 1903) (Hoshino and Motomura 2021)], and usually 8 dorsal-fin soft rays [vs. 9 or 10 soft rays in all remaining species (Eschmeyer and Rama Rao 1972;Poss 1999;Greenfield and Matsuura 2002)].…”