The Subantarctic Zone (SAZ) is the region

delimited by the Subtropical Front to the north

and the Subantarctic Front to the south (SAF).

Strongly influenced by the cold water coming

from the southern oceans, SAZ has a circumpolar

distribution in the Southern Hemisphere with its

northern limits in the Atlantic Ocean. The Malv-

inas Current originates in the SAF in the Drake

Passage and flows northward over the Argentine

continental slope (Knox 2007; Herraiz-Bor-

reguero and Rintoul 2011; Artana et al. 2018).

Coastal reef fish fauna appears to have a similar

composition along the circumpolar distribution of

SAZ. One characteristic is the low number of

species and abundance with nototheniids making

up an essential part of the fish community and

other groups making regional differences (Kings-

ford et al. 1989). For example, in the Auckland

Islands three out of twelve species were

nototheniids, in Navarino Island nine out of eight-

een species were nototheniids, and in Beagle

Chanel this proportion is seven out of eighteen.

However, in the islands of Tristan da Cunha and

Gough no nototheniids were registered (Moreno

and Jara 1984; Kingsford et al.1989; Andrew et

al. 1995), but other species groups are common to

these sites, such as the families Latridae,

Bovichthidae, Moridae and Sebastidae.

In the northern part of Argentine Patagonia, the

rocky reef fish community is dominated by

warm-temperate fauna with twenty-one families

recognized in Nuevo and San José gulfs on reefs

up to 30 m depth, including most of those men-

tioned for SAZ. Toward the south, in the Beagle

Chanel, the fish community associated with the

kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) forest up to 6 m depth

is typical of subantarctic waters, with five fami-

lies and only eleven species, of which the

Nototheniidae family is one of the most impor-

tant. However, scarce information for central

MARINE AND FISHERY SCIENCES 33 (1): 121-127 (2020). https://doi.org/10.47193/mafis.3312020061808

NOTE

NEW OCCURRENCE OF Mendosoma lineatum Guichenot, 1848 IN CENTRAL

PATAGONIA, ARGENTINA, WITH COMMENTS ON THE ROCKY REEF COMMUNITY

MAURO MARCINKEVICIUS

Instituto de Desarrollo Costero (IDC), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales,

Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco (UNPSJB),

Ciudad Universitaria km 4, 9005 - Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina

e-mail: msmarcin@gmail.com

ABSTRACT. A new record of Mendosoma lineatum has been made in central Patagonian waters. This record is the

second mention after one specimen was caught in the north of San Jorge Gulf in 2012. It was proposed that the speci-

men arrived from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and this hypothesis is now reinforced with this new record. The

number of species that make up the rocky reef community of central Patagonia is also extended here. At present, eight

species have been recognized as part of this environment, and in this paper the number is extended to fifteen with seven

new species identified.

Key words: Telescope fish, Latridae, Argentine Patagonia, rocky reef fishes.

121

Patagonia coastal rocky reef is available (Galván

et al. 2005, 2009; Irigoyen et al.2005; Vanella et

al. 2006; Venerus et al.2008, 2014).

Waters of Argentine Patagonia are influenced

by Malvinas Current, and from central Patagonia

southwards, the rocky reef fish community seems

to have a similar composition to that described

above for subantarctic waters. Nototheniids are

an important component of this community, but

other groups are shared with southern South

America, Southeast Atlantic islands and New

Zealand islands. In this context, the telescope fish

Mendosoma lineatum Guichenot, 1848 is a

species that appears in the Southeast Pacific

(Pequeño et al.1980), Southeast Atlantic (Gon

and Heemstra 1987) and New Zealand (Kings-

ford et al. 1989), but it has only one record in the

Southwest Atlantic (Bovcon et al. 2017). The aim

of this paper was therefore to add another record

of M. lineatum and to extend the number of fish

species observed in rocky reef of central Argen-

tine Patagonian coast.

Two telescope fish (Figure 1) were caught

between October 28th and November 1st 2019 at

‘La Tranquera’ beach, a coastal rocky reef off

central Patagonia, Argentina (46° 02′ 36″ S, 67°

35′ 49″ W; Figure 2), between 3 and 10 m depth.

Fish were caught by spearfishing. Gut and other

organs were removed and then frozen by the fish-

erman. Once in the laboratory, specimens were

fixed in 10% formaldehyde, identified, and mor-

phometric measurements and meristic counts

122 MARINE AND FISHERY SCIENCES 33 (1): 121-127 (2020)

Figure 1. Specimens of Mendosoma lineatum Guichenot, 1848 caught in San Jorge Gulf, central Patagonia. A) Specimen 1. B)

Specimen 2.

A

B

5 cm

were made following Pequeño (1980) and Bov-

con et al. (2017). M. lineatum specimens were

deposited in the Ichthyological Collection of the

Instituto de Diversidad y Evolución Austral

(IDEAus-CENPAT-CONICET) under the follow-

ing numbers: CNPICT 2019/32 and CNPICT

2019/33 for specimens 1 and 2, respectively. All

measurements were made to the nearest millime-

ter. Exploratory surveys of rocky reef fish were

performed by underwater observation conducted

by the author and scuba divers over several years.

Morphometric measurements (Table 1) and

meristic counts (Table 2) of M. lineatum were in

accordance with those taken by Pequeño (1980)

in Corral Bay (Chile), Gon and Heemstra (1987)

in Gough Island (South Atlantic Ocean), and

Bovcon et al. (2017) in the north of San Jorge

Gulf (Argentine Patagonia). According to the

fisherman, fish were in the rocky reef, swimming

outside but near the shelter, along with several

other fish that he recognized as the same species

coming in and out from other shelters. Table 3

show the list of species observed in coastal rocky

reef of San Jorge Gulf.

One specimen of M. lineatum was observed for

the first time in Argentine waters in 2012 and it

was proposed that it could have arrived from the

northern branch of the Antarctic Circumpolar

Current, the Malvinas Current (Bovcon et al.

2017). This paper records another occurrence of

two specimens caught and several others

observed in the study area, and it is possible that

they arrived in the same way. As previously men-

tioned, the rocky reef fish community of sub-

antarctic waters is characterized by having few,

low abundance species, of which an important

123

MARCINKEVICIUS: NEW OCCURRENCE OF MENDOSOMA LINEATUM

Figure 2. Collection site of Mendosoma lineatum Guichenot, 1848.

number are nototheniids (Moreno and Jara 1984;

Kingsford et al.1989). Many sites in SAZ share

species from the Latridae, Bovichthidae, Mori-

dae, Sebastidae and Nototheniidae families

(Moreno and Jara 1984; Kingsford et al.1989;

Andrew et al.1995; Vanella et al.2006). With the

exception of Latridae, the other families have

well-established populations in the waters of cen-

tral Argentine Patagonia. Since both the oceano-

graphic characteristics of SAZ are similar in all

the oceans that it covers, and that many fish fam-

ilies are well adapted to this water mass, the

establishment of a telescope fish population could

be possible. However, with only two records so

separated in time, a population analysis over time

would be needed to test this hypothesis.

Nine species were mentioned for central Patag-

onia as part of the rocky reef community (Galván

et al.2009), and in this paper the number of

species was extended to fifteen. Only one species

mentioned above, Pinguipes brasilianus Cuvier,

1829,was not found, and a second record of M.

lineatum was made. Compared with description

of northern Patagonia made by these authors,

most of the families are shared, except for Zoarci-

dae, Syngnathidae and Latridae (Galván et al.

2009). The Latridae Family is represented by M.

lineatum and was seen on one occasion; the Syn-

gnathidae Family is represented by the pipefish,

well known in San Matías Gulf (Luzzato and

Estalles 2019). It is a highly cryptic species and

that is possibly why Galván et al. (2019) could not

124 MARINE AND FISHERY SCIENCES 33 (1): 121-127 (2020)

Table 1. Morphometric measurements of the two specimens of Mendosoma lineatum Guichenot, 1848. Measured length and pro-

portion with respect to the standard length or head length are shown.

Specimen 1 Specimen 2

Measures Length (mm) %SL Length (mm) %SL

Total length 314 - 321 -

Standard length (SL) 264 - 275 -

Head length (HL) 74 28.0 71 25.8

Pre-anal length 184 69.7 189 68.7

Predorsal length 76 28.8 87 31.6

Dorsal-fin base 163 61.7 175 63.6

Anal-fin base 47 17.9 50 18.2

Caudal peduncle maximum height 23 8.7 21 7.6

Pectoral-fin length 56 21.2 56 20.4

Pelvic-fin length 40 15.2 40 14.5

Length (mm) %HL Length (mm) %HL

Orbital diameter 16 21.6 15 21.1

Inter-orbital space 22 29.7 21 29.6

Preocular distance 22 29.7 23 32.4

Postocular distance 38 50.7 35 49.3

Maxilla + premaxilla length 26 35.1 27 38.0

observe it. Perhaps the most important difference

is made by Zoarcidae family, which is well repre-

sented in southern Patagonia (Gosztonyi 1977;

Vanella et al.2006). On the other hand, compared

with the Beagle Channel, three of the five families

found in the south are shared: Nototheniidae,

Zoarcidae and Bovichtidae (Vanella et al. 2006).

This study was carried out in San Jorge Gulf,

which is an intermediate zone with a mixed fish

community, some shared with northern Patagon-

125

MARCINKEVICIUS: NEW OCCURRENCE OF MENDOSOMA LINEATUM

Table 2. Meristic counts for the two specimens of Mendosoma lineatum Guichenot 1848.

Specimen 1 Specimen 2

Dorsal-fin rays XXIII-24 XXIII-26

Anal-fin rays III-16 III-18

Pectoral-fin rays 16 16

Pelvic-fin rays I-5 I-5

Lateral-line scales 71 78

Scales between the origin of 5 6

the dorsal fin and lateral line

Scales between the origin of 15 16

the anal fin and lateral line

Table 3. List of species observed in the rocky reef of San Jorge Gulf, including information on species recorded by Galván et al.

(2009) in northern Patagonian gulfs (NPG).

Family Species NPG

Nototheniidae Patagonotothen brevicauda (Lönnberg 1905) *

Patagonotothen cornucola (Richardson 1844)

Notothenia angustata Hutton 1875 *

Bovichtidae Bovichtus argentinus MacDonagh 1931 *

Cottoperca trigloides (Forster 1801)

Eleginopsidae Eleginops maclovinus (Cuvier 1830)

Zoarcidae Austrolycus laticinctus (Berg 1895)

Moridae Salilota australis (Günther 1878) *

Sebastidae Sebastes oculatus Valenciennes 1833 *

Pinguipedidae Pseudopercis semifasciata (Cuvier 1829) *

Cheilodactylidae Nemadactylus bergi (Norman 1937) *

Tripterygiidae Helcogrammoides cunninghami (Smitt 1898)

Congiopodidae Congiopodus peruvianus (Cuvier 1829) *

Syngnathidae Leptonotus sp.

Latridae Mendosoma lineatum Guichenot 1848

ian gulfs, and others with Beagle Channel. It has a

moderate number of species, lower than north of

Patagonia and higher than Beagle Channel, but

corresponding to that seen in the subantarctic reef.

The author is grateful to Javier Núñez, who

caught and provided the specimens for study, and

to Dr A. Irigoyen for providing literature and

helping with the identification.

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Received: 8 January 2020

Accepted: 17 February 2020

127

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