On the pipefish, Trachyrhamphus punctatus (KAMOHARA), new to the fish-fauna of the Inland Sea of Seto
1963 Volume 10 Issue 2-6 Pages 28-30
Details
1963 Volume 10 Issue 2-6 Pages 28-30
In 1952, KAMOHARA described a new species of Syngnathidae, Yozia punctata, collected from the fish-market at Mimase in Kochi Prefecture. But this species was included in Trachyrhmphus by MATSUBARA (1955) from its morphological characters. Since then, the occurrence of this species off Nezumigasaki in Yamagata Prefecture and off Okinoshima in Kochi Prefecture were reported by HONMA (1959) and KAMOHARA (1960), respectively.
The author wishes to report here the occurrence of this species and its morphological characters, because this species is very rare but he collected fortunately a male specimen from Kusatsu Fish-market, Hiroshima Prefecture.
The present specimen has the following morphological characters:
1) D. 18; A. 3; P. 14; C. 8; body-rings 14+35. Head 2 in trunk, head and trunk 1.7 in tail without caudal. Eye 4.1 in snout, 7.3 in head. Depth 4.6 in head, 36 in total length.
2) This specimen has a brood-pouch with serrated ventral keel at the body rings 1-44.
3) This specimen has clear blue eye-like spots around the trunk and on the sides of the tail.
4) Thus, the morphological characters of the present specimen showed somewhat close resemblance to those of the already reported ones. But the most remarkable difference of the present specimen from the already reported ones is the presence of the dots of the head, trunk and tail.
