Records of the Pacific Bearded Brotula, Brotula clarkae, from Southern California

Abstract

The genus Brotula (Family: Ophidiidae) is characterized as having a circumtropical and subtropical marine distribution (Hubbs 1944; Nielsen et al. 1999). Two species are known from the Eastern Pacific: Fore-spotted Brotula (Brotula ordwayi Hildebrand & Barton, 1949) and Pacific Bearded Brotula (Brotula clarkae Hubbs, 1944). Of the two species, Brotula clarkae is more common and is known from higher, more subtropical latitudes in both hemispheres. Recently, Brotula flaviviridis was described by Greenfield (2005) from the Fiji Islands; however, this species appears to be a Fiji archipelago endemic or perhaps a species of limited distribution in the Central Pacific. Love et al. (2005) noted that the Pacific Bearded Brotula is found in the Eastern Tropical Pacific from Cabo San Lazaro, Baja California Sur to Paita, Peru, including Gulf of California, at depths of 1–645 m. On 24 July 2001, fishes from the southern California Spot Prawn (Pandalus platyceros) trap fishery were collected by the California Department of Fish and Game for ongoing studies concerning related by-catch. A sample, consisting of various rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) and a large Spotted Cusk-eel (Chilara taylori), was collected from the fishing vessel Stephanie D. The traps for this sample were set about eight nautical miles (14.8 km) west of Point Loma, San Diego County, lat 33u09.39 N, long 117u26.79 W, in ca. 122 fathoms (223 m). The entire sample was sent to the senior author (RNL) for confirmation and documentation. Upon examination of these fishes, it was apparent that the ‘‘Spotted Cusk-eel’’ was not this species but was in fact a member of the genus Brotula and was identified specifically as B. clarkae. This specimen (Fig. 1) is deposited in the Department of Ichthyology at California Academy of Sciences (CAS uncatalogued) and tissue resides in the Marine Vertebrate Collection, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO 02-95). On 6 March 2003 a second specimen of Brotula was collected by the third author (WP), of the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, off the Palos Verdes Shelf, Los Angeles County, lat 33u41.89 N, long 118u20.09 W, at Station T5, from 65 m. During recovery and routine maintenance of a thermister array by the research vessel Ocean Sentinel, the specimen was found in the steel base of the array. The fish did not appear to be any of the expected locally caught species and was later identified as Brotula clarkae. This specimen is catalogued in the Marine Vertebrate Collection as SIO 07-67 (Fig. 2). Morphometric and meristic information on these two Californian specimens are included in Table 1. Both fish are typical Brotula clarkae and are easily differentiated from B. ordwayi by pattern of coloration, counts, and morphometry (Hildebrand and Bull. Southern California Acad. Sci. 108(3), 2009, pp. 163–167 E Southern California Academy of Sciences, 2009