Abstract
The lutjanid fish Lutjanus ehrenbergii (Peters) is widely distributed on the coasts of the Indo-West Pacific region (Allen and Talbot, 1985; Allen, 1985). In Japan, however, there is no certain record of this species except that Shimada and Yoshino (1987) pointed out that a specimen (243.0 mm in SL from Ishigahi Island, Japan) identified as L. johnii (Bloch) by Shinohara (1966) is this snapper. Recently, we re-examined the specimens of the lutjanid fishes which were collected from the Yaeyama Islands, reported by Hayashi (1979) and Senou and Suzuki (1980), and found 15 juveniles of L. ehrenbergii among the specimens identified as L. fulviflamma (Forsskâl).
Allen and Talbot (1985) described the detailed differences among the Indo-West Pacific snappers with an ocellated spot below the anterior soft dorsal, and their excellent work facilitated the identification of such lutjanids. However, considerable difficulties still remain in their identification, especially in the juvenile stage, because the spotted snappers are very uniform in their morphometric and meristic characters, and their coloration changes with growth.
In this paper, we describe L. ehrenbergii from the Japanese waters in comparison with other similar Japanese lutjanids with an ocellated spot in the juvenile stage and provide a key to these species. Counts and measurements follow those of Allen and Talbot (1985).
