First record of the red cornetfish Fistularia petimba (Syngnathiformes: Fistularidae) in Galician waters: a northernmost occurrence in the eastern Atlantic

Abstract

The red cornetfish Fistularia petimba Lacépède, 1803 is a large fish typically found along soft bottom coastal areas and usually at depths over 10 m (Fritzsche, 1978). The geographic distribution ranges from tropical waters of the Atlantic to the Indian and Pacific oceans. The distribution in the eastern Atlantic extends from Cape Blanc and the Cape Verde Islands to Angola (Fritzsche, 1990). Two unusual records were noted northward this area in Cádiz, on the Mediterranean (Cárdenas et al., 1997) and along the Azores Islands (Azevedo et al., 2004). On 11 May 2006, the vessel ‘Nueva Revoltosa’ based in Laxe, at the north-west coast of Galicia (NW Spain), caught a specimen of the cornetfish that was later identified as Fistularia petimba. The specimen (Fig. 1) was 1400 mm total length and weighed 1580 g. It was caught at a depth of 7 m with trammel nets, near a local beach called ‘Traba de Laxe’ (Fig. 2). Specimen of Fistularia petimba, MLICN 6155 (1400 mm LT and 1580 g) caught in Galician waters (NE Atlantic) Map showing area and station () where the Fistularia petimba specimen was captured The specimen was preserved in ethanol 70% and stored in the fish collection of the Museum Luis Iglesias de Ciencias Naturais of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain) with the reference number 6155. This record constitutes a new extended northern limit for the distribution of F. petimba in the eastern Atlantic. According to Fritzsche (1976), the main diagnostic meristic counts and measurements are given in millimetres followed in parentheses by the percentage of standard length: dorsal fin rays: 16; anal fin rays: 16; pectoral fin rays: 15; ventral fin rays: 6; branchiostegal rays: 7; no gillrakers; Total length with filament: 1400; Total length without filament: 1241; fork length: 1212; standard length: 1182; head length 429 (36.3); pre-orbital length: 321 (27.2); post-orbital length: 77 (6.5); horizontal eye diameter: 31 (2.6); interorbital length: 30 (2.5); pre-dorsal length: 976 (82.6); dorsal base length: 45 (3.8); pre-anal length: 985 (83.3); anal base length: 39 (3.3); upper jaw length: 45 (3.8); lower jaw length: 52 (4.4); pectoral length: 48 (4.1); ventral length: 28 (2.4); body depth: 53 (4.5) and body width: 64 (5.4). The genus Fistularia Linnaeus, 1758 contains four species of which only two, Fistularia tabacaria and F. petimba, are distributed in the eastern Atlantic. Fistularia petimba differs from F. tabacaria mainly by the presence of imbricate bony plates prior to the dorsal and anal fins (Fritzsche, 1976), which are clearly visible in this specimen. As well as F. petimba, other species of this genus have been recorded outside of their normal distribution area. This is the case in F. tabaccaria, occasionally caught in warm and low salinity Hudson River waters (Young et al., 1982) and Fistularia commersoni recorded in Mediterranean Sea as a Lessepsian species (Golani, 2000). The number of new alien southern fish species of tropical and subtropical origin has rapidly increased in recent years in Galician waters (Bañón et al., 2002; Bañón, 2004). The reasons for the spread of NW African fishes northward of their normal distribution range has been attributed to ocean warming (Swaby et al., 1996; Quéro et al., 1998) together with oceanographic events such as the presence of poleward currents (Koutsikopoulos et al., 1998) and fluctuations in frontal systems (Castro-Hernández, 2001). We wish to thank the skipper and fishermen of ‘Nueva Revoltosa’ and the ‘Cofradía of Laxe’ staff for providing the specimen. We also wish to thank the personnel of the Museum Luis Iglesias de Ciencias Naturais of Santiago de Compostela for the use of their facilities in the specimen analysis.