Meristic Variation in Golden Redfish, Sebastes marinus, Compared to Beaked Redfishes of the Northwest Atlantic

摘要

Counts of the vertebral elements in 3 611 specimens and the anal and dorsal fin rays in 1 379 specimens were utilized to examine meristic variation in S. marinus in the Northwest Atlantic from West Greenland to the Grand Bank-Gulf of St. Lawrence, for comparison with data reported in similar studies of the beaked redfishes, S. mentella and S. fasciatus. The X2-test of independence for meristic frequencies showed no significant differences between sexes or among depth zones except for significant depth variation of anal fin-ray and dorsal fin-ray frequencies on Flemish Cap. Geographic variation in S. marinus meristics was less than in the beaked redfishes. S. marinus was found to be similar to S. mentella in having 30 vertebrae (excluding urostyle), 8 anal fin rays and 15 dorsal fin rays, whereas S. fasciatus usually has 29, 7 and 14 elements respectively. The recently-adopted common name "golden redfish" is considered to be appropriate for S. marinus.