The Lutianid Fishes of Texas

Abstract

ALONG the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, from Temple Bay in Florida to Brownsville in southern Texas, the sea bottom declines gradually to the hundred-fathom curve, forming vast, almost level, plains of sand. At depths of from 7 to 45 fathoms these plains are traversed by gullies of variable size, in which the water is often several fathoms deeper than the surrounding bottom. The majority of such depressions have rock or coral bottoms. Interspersed with these, along the Texas coast at least, are reefs such as the Heald Bank at Galveston, the Twenty-four Ten Bank southeast of Brownsville, and various unnamed coral formations all along the coast. In the fishermen's vernacular, these reefs and gullies are known indiscriminately as the snapper banks. These banks support a heavy and localized fish fauna, mostly belonging to the family of serranids, the majority of which are reef dwellers. They are carnivorous, and, in general, comprise a group of large, active, and voracious fishes common throughout the warm waters of the world. It is with these fishes on the Texas coast, and some closely allied genera, that this and succeeding papers will deal, the first family considered being the lutianids. Several of the species listed have not previously been recorded from this coast, and one of them, Lutianus jocu, the dog snapper, is doubly interesting, because of this extension of its range and the enormous size which it attains in our waters.