Lanternfish larvae from the Agulhas current (SW Indian Ocean)

Abstract

SUMMARY: This paper is presented as a guide to assist in identifying larval stages of lanternfish (family Myctophidae) of the Agulhas Current region. The work is based on the larvae collected during three cruises conducted off the eastern coast of South Africa from 29°S to 34°S in 1990 and 1991. The larval distributions obtained from these surveys are summarised briefly. Generally, only literature citations are given for species of the region whose larvae have been described previously. Descriptions are limited to those species for which complete larval development have not been published previously and to those species not known to spawn in the region, to compare larval features with those from regions where the species is known to spawn (i.e., Benthosema fibulatum, B. pterotum, Hygophum proximum, Lampadena luminosa, Myctophum selenops, Notoscopelus caudispinosus and Triphoturus nigrescens). Also, diagnostic characters and illustrations are presented for species which may be difficult to identify in some developmental stages, particularly the early larval stages (i.e., Benthosema suborbitale, Bolinichthys spp., Ceratoscopelus townsendi, Diogenichthys panurgus, Myctophum phengodes, Lobianchia dofleini, L. gemellarii and Scopelopsis multipunctatus).

43 Years after H.G. Moser’s Seminal “Morphological and Functional Aspects of Marine Fish Larvae”: The Commonalities of Leptocephali and Larvae of Other Marine Teleosts

“…About halfway through the taxonomically sequential treatment of the larvae of each group, HGM revealed what was one of Ahlstrom's and his great interests: "In no other teleost group have the larvae explored so many pathways of evolutionary diversity as in the myctophid lanternfishes." His contributions to research on myctophids are well known through many published papers (e.g., [63][64][65][66][67]). With great interest in such a complicated and diverse group as well as several others as overviewed by Mundy and Hilton [7], it is no wonder that there was little focus on leptocephali, but some interest seems to have existed, since HGM coauthored sections on leptocephali of the Elopidae, Albulidae, Notacanthidae, and Muraenidae in Atlas No.…”

Community Structure and Post-monsoonal Distribution of Icthyoplankton in Kuatan River, Malaysia

“…Icthyoplankton samples were measured under Dino Capture 2.0 portable microscope and stored in 70% ethanol for further downstream application. Samples were identified morphologically to the lowest possible taxon using standard references [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Taxonomic classification was according to Nelson [17]. Size classes of larvae were tabulated with observed physicochemical parameters of the ambient water for Pearson's correlation matrix analysis.…”