Author(s):
Barreiros, João P. 
; Machado, Leonardo F. ; Hostim-Silva, Maurício ; Sazima, Ivan ; Heemstra, Phillip C.
Date: 2004
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/1571
Origin: Repositório da Universidade dos Açores
Subject(s): First Record; Polyprion oxygeneios; Polyprionidae; SW Atlantic Ocean
Description
Copyright © 2004 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles. The hapuka Polyprion oxygeneios (Schneider & Foster) (Fig. 1) is an important deep-water commercial fish species, caught mainly off Australia, New Zealand, Juan Fernandez Archipelago off Chile, the Tristan da Cunha Group of the South Atlantic (Sepúlveda & Pequeño, 1986; May & Maxwell, 1986; Paulin et al., 1989; Paxton et al., 1989; Andrew et al., 1995) and incidentally caught off Chilean Patagonia (Nakamura et al., 1986). The distribution of P. oxygeneios is exclusively southern circum-global, intemperate-cold waters from 28_ to 43_ S (Paxton et al., 1989). Polyprion oxygeneios (Polyprionidae; Nelson, 1994) is mainly a demersal species with a depth range of 50–450 m, occurring over ‘rough’ ground from the central shelf to the upper slope (Paxton et al., 1989). It reaches 150 cm total length (LT) and may weigh up to 100 kg, its juveniles being found near the surface, probably associated with drifting material in a way similar to that recorded for Polyprion americanus (Bloch & Schneider) (Paxton et al., 1989; Saldanha, 1995). This paper reports the first record of P. oxygeneios from the south-west Atlantic.
