Gulf and Caribbean Research

Alternate Title

First Record of Bonefish, Albula vulpes, from Mississippi Coastal Waters

Authors

K.J. Cuevas, Mississippi Department of Marine Resources
James S. Franks, Gulf Coast Research LaboratoryFollow
M.V. Buchanan, Mississippi Department of Marine Resources

Document Type

Short Communication

Abstract

Bonefish (Albula spp.), Family Albulidae, occur worldwide in coastal waters of tropical and warm temperate seas (Crabtree et al. 1997), and 2 species, A. vulpes and A. nemoptera, are recognized from the western Atlantic Ocean (Rivas and Warlen 1967). The normal range of A. vulpes in the western Atlantic extends from Bermuda to Brazil, including the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico, Central America and the Antilles (Hildebrand 1963), but in US waters, A. vulpes typically occurs off south Florida (Crabtree et al. 1997). In contrast, A. nemoptera has been reported from Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Jamaica and Hispaniola (Uyeno et al. 1983).

Published accounts of A. vulpes from the northcentral Gulf of Mexico (hereafter GOM) are rare. Ogren and Brusher (1977) collected a single specimen of A. vulpes from St. Andrew Bay, Florida but did not report its size. Thompson and Deegan (1982) reported the collection of 3 A. vulpes leptocephali (range: 34.8–53.5 mm standard length (SL)) from Louisiana coastal waters, and Boschung (1992) reported a single A. vulpes juvenile (37 mm SL) collected from Grand Bay, Alabama. We report the first record of A. vulpes from Mississippi.

First Page

71

Last Page

72

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.18785/gcr.1601.10

Recommended Citation

Cuevas, K., J. S. Franks and M. Buchanan. 2004. First Record of Bonefish, Albula vulpes, from Mississippi Coastal Waters. Gulf and Caribbean Research 16 (1): 71-72.
Retrieved from https://aquila.usm.edu/gcr/vol16/iss1/10
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18785/gcr.1601.10