The Field Guide for Identifications of Fishes of the Emperor Seamount Chain Captured by Bottom Fisheries
This field guide is developed for the use by NPFC Members to help in the identification of the fishes of the Emperor Seamount Chain (ESC) captured by bottom trawlers. It contains 128 species that were captured through surveys conducted by the Fishery Agency of Japan in 2005–2017. The specimens are deposited in the fish specimen collection of the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency (SNFR).
When attempting to identify specimens using this field guide, first refer to the “List of Pictures” that shows all the species in this field guide. Species are arranged following the systematic classification of Nelson et al. (2016).
When you find a picture that is similar to your specimen, refer to the “Annotations of Species”. Species are listed in this section in the same order as in the “List of Pictures”. Compare your specimen with the “Diagnosis” that summarizes the characters useful for identification. “Counts” are primarily based on the data provided by references (e.g., Nakabo 2013) because the number of the examined specimens was limited. Following are abbreviations used in “Counts”: D, dorsal-fin rays; A, anal-fin rays; P1, pectoral-fin rays; P2, pelvic-fin rays; GR, gill rakers; LL, lateral-line scales; SAL, scale rows above lateral line (usually between the dorsal-fin origin and the lateral line); LR, scales in longitudinal row along lateral line; vert, vertebrae. In “Distribution”, the geographic distribution of the species is summarized based on cited references, and the depth information is primarily based on the collection data of the deposited specimens. If necessary, a “Remarks” section is provided to explain the taxonomic issues and the characters that are especially useful to distinguish closely related species. Terminology of body parts is indicated in Fig. 1.
“FAO Code” indicated by three characters below the scientific name of each species is the “3-alpha code” of Garibaldi and Busilacchi (2002). The specimens supporting the publication of this field guide were provided by the surveys planned and funded by “Research and assessment program for internationally managed fisheries resources, the Fishery Agency of Japan”, and conducted by the fishing vessels Shoshin-maru No. 88, Tomi-maru No. 58, Kaiyo-maru No. 38, Kaiyo-maru No. 51, Yokei-maru No. 5, Oumi-maru, and Dairin-maru No. 5. We appreciate the efforts of Drs. Yanagimoto T., Hayashibara T., Yonezaki S., Okuda T., Nishida K., and Miyamoto M., who promoted the surveys and collected the specimens. We are grateful to Dr. J. W. Orr (University of Washington) for his critical reading and English corrections of the manuscript. We are thankful for the advice of NPFC members and Secretariat: Drs. C. Rooper, A. Zavolokin, and D.-Y. Moon.