Browsing by Author "Richardson, Andrew J."
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- First record of an Odontaspidid shark in Ascension Island watersPublication . Richardson, Andrew J.; Burgess, George H.; Shepherd, Charles M.; Weber, Sam B.The occurrence of the poorly understood shark species Odontapsis ferox is reported at an oceanic seamount in the central south Atlantic, within the Exclusive Economic Zone of Ascension Island. The presence of the species at this location is confirmed by the discovery of a tooth embedded in scientific equipment, and footage of at least one animal on autonomous underwater video. The new record of this shark species at this location demonstrates the knowledge gaps which still exist at many remote, oceanic structures and their candidacy for status as important conservation areas.
- New records of marine invertebrates from Ascencion Island (Central Atlantic)Publication . Brown, Judith; Downes, K.; Mrowicki, R. J.; Nolan, E. L.; Richardson, Andrew J.; Swinnen, Frank; Wirtz, PeterThe sea anemone Telmatactis forskalii, the zoanthid Isaurus tuberculatus, the nemertine Baseodiscus delineatus, the echinoderms Ophiocoma wendtii and Mithrodia clavigera, the molluscs Colubraria canariensis, Glyphepithema turtoni, Tonna pennata, Trivia candidula, Melanella eburnea, Melanella n.sp., Echineulima leucophaes, Stylocheilus striatus, Limaria hians, Pteria hirundo and Callistoctopus macropus, and the crustaceans Tetraclitella sp., Oxynaspis celata, Thor amboinensis and Parribacus antarcticus are recorded from Ascension Island for the first time. A new depth record is given for the sea anemone Telmatactis cricoides. An undescribed shrimp species of the genus Lysmata and the shrimp Lysmata moorei were observed to clean fish at night.
- The polygon moray, Gymnothorax polygonius (Poey, 1875) : A new record from Ascension Island, South AtlanticPublication . Richardson, Andrew J.; Brito, AlbertoAscension Island (07°57′S, 14°22′W) is an isolat-ed volcanic edifice in the South Atlantic. The closest land, St. Helena is approximately 700 miles south with the closest land mass of any size being West Africa, 1000 miles to the east. Approximately 1500 miles west of Ascension Island is the coast of Brazil. As such, the fish community of the island is a mixture of eastern and western Atlantic species, although richness is relatively low compared with other similar loca-tions such as Cape Verde (Wirtz et al. 2014). Despite the apparent remoteness of Ascension Island there have been several key publications on the ichthyofauna for the island and surround-ing marine zone. The fish community of Ascen-sion was first summarized by Cadenat & Marchal (1963), with a comprehensive checklist of shal-low-water fish species published by Lubbock (1980) record-ing 71 species. A report on the benthic and near-benthic fish community, from seamounts around Ascension, was compiled in Trunov (2006). The most recent review of the ichthyofauna of Ascen-sion can be found in Wirtz et al. (2014), a study listing 173 fish species, including 12 members of the family Muraenidae. The extensive rocky ma-rine habitat of Ascension Island is often consid-ered a key factor behind the considerable abun-dance of moray eels around the island. On 21 Feburary 2015 an unidentified moray eel was caught by a recreational angler who had been fishing in deep water from a vessel off the west-ern coast of Ascension Island (Fig. 1). The spec-imen did not match any previous identification records of Muraenidae from Ascension Island. […].