Occurrence of the blackfin goosefish, Lophius gastrophysus (Miranda Ribeiro, 1915), in coastal waters of the San Jorge Gulf, Patagonia, Argentina

COCHIA, P.D.; BOVCON, N.D.; RUIBAL-NÚÑEZ, J.; VILLAGRAN, L.; JEREZ, L.

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ANGEWANDTE ICHTHYOLOGIE

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2016 vol. 32 p. 1229 - 1231

0175-8659

The blackfin goosefish, Lophius gastrophysus, is distributed in the Western Atlantic from North Carolina (United States) to northern Argentina between 39°N and 39°S (Caruso, 1983). It is a benthic species associated with soft bottoms and cold waters (Vianna & Almeida, 2005), and found between 40 and 700 m depths(Botelho, 2008). It has a flattened body; a wide mouth; a reduced gill opening; and a structure called an illicium near the tip of the snout, which corresponds to the first spine of the modified dorsal fin. The breeding season in Brazilian waters occurs between August and January (Valentim, Caramaschi, & Vianna, 2007). Size and age at maturity for females were estimated at 51.7 cm and 9 years (Lopes, 2005). Lophius gastrophysus is considered to be a slow-growing and high longevity species, reaching an age of 19 years (Botelho, 2008). Its diet is mainly fish-based (Valentim et al., 2007). We report herein the occurrence of two specimens of L. gastrophysus in coastal waters of the San Jorge Gulf, an expansion of its distributional range in 6° latitude southward. Both specimens represent the southernmost records in Patagonian coastal waters of Argentina.