New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

---

Occurrence of dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) and pompano dolphinfish (Coryphaena equiselis) in the Canary Islands revealed by genetic analysis

J. M. Pujolar
C. Pla

Laboratori Ictiologia Genètica
Departament de Biologia
Universitat de Girona
Campus Montilivi
17071 Girona, Spain
email: dbmpc@fc.udg.es

Abstract  Genetic analyses of samples of the genus Coryphaena caught in the Canary Islands clearly revealed the existence of two different species, C. hippurus, Linnaeus 1758 and C. equiselis, Linnaeus 1758. Each species was fixed for different alleles at 11 out of 30 loci and a large genetic distance (0.814) was found between the two species. Previously only C. hippurus has been reported in the Canary Islands fishery. The two Coryphaena species are similar in appearance, so C. equiselis can be confused with C. hippurus by fishers, especially small specimens <70 cm fork length. The 11 exclusive alleles that characterise each species could be used as genetic markers to identify specimens and fillets of C. hippurus and C. equiselis.

Keywords  Coryphaena; dolphinfish; pompano dolphinfish; Canary Islands; electrophoresis; genetic analysis; species identification

M01058 Received 10 July 2001; accepted 12 September 2001
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 2002, Vol. 36: 339–343
0028–8330/02/3602–0339 $7.00 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2002

PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality (37K)

---

This year's abstracts | Journal home page | All abstracts | Publishing home page