The polygon moray, Gymnothorax polygonius (Poey, 1875) : A new record from Ascension Island, South Atlantic

Richardson, Andrew J.; Brito, Alberto

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/3905

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Authors

Richardson, Andrew J.

Brito, Alberto

Abstract(s)

Ascension 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. […].