Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:40:52.821Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Goliath grouper (Pisces: Serranidae) from the upper Miocene Urumaco Formation, Venezuela

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

Orangel Aguilera
Affiliation:
1Universidad Nacional Experimental Francisco de Miranda, Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Básicas, Complejo Docente Los Perozos, Carretera Variante Sur, Coro 4101, Estado Falcón, Venezuela, 2Research Associate to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Dione Rodrigues de Aguilera
Affiliation:
1Universidad Nacional Experimental Francisco de Miranda, Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Básicas, Complejo Docente Los Perozos, Carretera Variante Sur, Coro 4101, Estado Falcón, Venezuela,

Extract

The goliath grouper (family Serranidae, subfamily Epinephelinae) inhabits tropical and subtropical waters. The Epinephelinae serranids are comprised of about 159 species in 15 genera (Heemstra and Randall, 1993) and are represented in all oceans. According to Heemstra and Randall (1993) the goliath grouper Epinephelus itajara (Lichtenstein, 1822) occurs in the eastern Atlantic Ocean from Florida to Brazil, throughout the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean Sea, in the western Atlantic Ocean from Senegal to the Congo, and in the eastern Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of California to Peru. The maximum size is about 250 cm total length and they can exceed 320 kg in weight. The grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus (Bloch, 1790) occurs throughout the Indo-Pacific region, from the Red Sea to Algoa Bay, South Africa, and eastward to the Hawaiian and Pitcairn Islands, and in the western Pacific Ocean from southern Japan to Australia in the south. The maximum size is about 231 cm total length (Schultz, 1966) and 400 kg in weight (Fourmanoir and Laboute, 1976). These two species are the largest serranids in the world. Sadovy and Eklund (1999) noted that males reach a maximum age of 26 and females 37 years in a population of E. itajara.

Type
Paleontological Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aguilera, O., and de Aguilera, D. Rodrigues 1999. Bathymetric distribution of Miocene to Pleistocene Caribbean Teleostean fishes from the coast of Panama and Costa Rica, p. 251269. In Collins, L. S. and Coates, A. G. (eds.), A Paleobiotic Survey of Caribbean Faunas from the Neogene of the Isthmus of Panama. Bulletins of American Paleontology, 357.Google Scholar
Aguilera, O., and de Aguilera, D. Rodrigues 2001. An exceptional coastal upwelling fish assemblage in the Caribbean Neogene, p. 732742. In Budd, A. F. and Miller, D. (eds.), Morphology and evolution of the late Cenozoic marine biota of tropical America. Journal of Paleontology, 75.Google Scholar
Aguilera, O., and de Aguilera, D. Rodrigues 2004. Amphi-American Neogene Sea catfishes (Siluriformes, Ariidae) from northern South America, p. 2948. In Sánchez-Villagra, M. R. and Clack, J. A. (eds.), Fossils from the Miocene Castillo Formation, Venezuela: Contributions in Neotropical Palaeontology. Special Papers in Palaeontology, 71.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. E. 1790. Naturgeschichte der Ausländischen Fische. Berlin, 4, 128 p.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. E. 1793. Naturgeschichte der Ausländischen Fische. Berlin, 7, 144 p.Google Scholar
Coates, A. G. 1999. Lithostratigraphy of the Neogene strata of the Caribbean coast from Limon, Costa Rica, to Colon, p. 1738. In Collins, L. S. and Coates, A. G. (eds.), A Paleobiotic survey of the Caribbean faunas from the Neogene of the Isthmus of Panama. Bulletins of American Paleontology, 357.Google Scholar
Coates, A. G., and Obando, J. A. 1996. The geologic evolution of the Central American Isthmus, p. 2156. In Jackson, J. B. C., Budd, A. F., and Coates, A. G. (eds.), Evolution and Environment in Tropical America. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 425 p.Google Scholar
Coates, A. G., Jackson, J. B. C., Collins, L. S., Cronin, T. M., Dowsett, H. T., Bybell, L. M., Jung, P., and Obando, J. 1992. Closure of the Isthmus of Panama: The near-shore marine record of Costa Rica and western Panama. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 104:814828.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, M. T., Pondella, D. J., Franck, J. P. C., and Hafnert, J. C. 2001. On the status of the serranid fish genus Epinephelus: Evidence for paraphyly based upon 16S rDNA sequence. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 19(1):121130.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forsskål, P. 1775. Descriptiones animalium avium, amphibiorum, piscium, insectorum, vermium; quae in itinere orientali observavit… Post mortem auctoris edidit Carsten Niebuhr. Hauniae. Descr. Animalium, p. 120 + i-xxxiv + 1–164.Google Scholar
Fourmanoir, P., and Laboute, P. 1976. Poissons de Nouvelle Calédonie et des Nouvelles Hébrides. Les Éditions du Pacifique, Papeete, Thahiti, 376 p.Google Scholar
Heemstra, P. C., and Randall, J. E. 1993. FAO Species Catalogue. Groupers of the world (Family Serranidae, Subfamily Epinephelinae). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of the grouper, rockcod, hind, coral grouper and lyretail species known to date. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Fisheries Synopsis, 16(125), 382 p.Google Scholar
Jordan, D. S., and Eigenmann, C. H. 1890. A review of the genera and species of Serranidae found in the waters of America and Europe. Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, 8:329441.Google Scholar
Léxico Estratigráfico de Venezuela. 1997. Léxico estratigráfico de Venezuela (tercera edición). Ministerio de Energía y Minas, Boletín de Geología, 12, 828 p.Google Scholar
Lichtenstein, M. H. G. 1822. Die Werke von Marcgrave und Piso ueber die Naturgeschichte Brasiliens, ereautert aus den wieder aufgefundenen Originalzeichnungen. Abbildungen. IV. Fische, Abh. K. Akademie des Wissenschaft, Berlin, (1820–1821):267288.Google Scholar
Lundberg, J. G., and Chernoff, B. 1992. A Miocene fossil of the Amazonian fish Arapaima (Teleostei, Arapaimidae) from the Magdalena river region of Colombia-Biogeographic and evolutionary implications. Biotropica, 24(1):214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lundberg, J. G., Machado-Allison, A., and Kay, R. F. 1986. Miocene Characid fishes from Colombia: Evolutionary stasis and extirpation. Science, 234:208209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nolf, D. 1976. Les otolithes de Téléostéens néogènes de Trinidad. Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae, 69(3):703742.Google Scholar
Nolf, D., and Aguilera, O. 1998. Fish otoliths from the Cantaure Formation (Early Miocene of Venezuela). Bulletin de IInstitut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Sciences de la Terre, 68:237262.Google Scholar
Nolf, D., and Stringer, G. L. 1992. Neogene paleontology in the northern Dominican Republic, 14. Otoliths of teleostean fishes. Bulletins of American Paleontology, 102(340):4181.Google Scholar
Purdy, R. W., Schneider, V. P., Applegate, S. P., Mclellan, J. H., Meyer, R. L., and Slaughter, B. H. 2001. The Neogene sharks, rays, and bony fishes from Lee Creek Mine, Aurora, North Carolina, p. 71202. In Ray, C. and Bohaska, D. (eds.), Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, III. Smithsonian Contribution to Paleobiology, 90.Google Scholar
Quoy, J. R. C., and Gaimard, J. P. 1824–1825. Description des Poissons. Chapter 9, p. 192401. In de Freycinet, L., Voyage autour du Monde… exécuté sur les corvettes de L. M. “L'Uranie” et “La Physicienne,” pendant les années 1817–1820. Paris. Voyage Uranie, Zoology. (p. 1328 in 1824; p. 329–616 in 1825)Google Scholar
Sadovy, Y., and Eklund, A.-M. 1999. Synopsis of Biological Data on the Nassau grouper, Epinephelus striatus (Bloch, 1792), and the goliath grouper, E. itajara (Lichtenstein, 1822). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Technical Report, NMFS 146, 65 p.Google Scholar
Schultz, L. P. 1966. Addenda, p. 147165. In Fishes of the Marshall and Marianas Islands. Bulletins of the United States National Museum, 202(3):1176.Google Scholar
Smith, G. L. 1971. A revision of the American Grouper: Epinephelus and Allied Genera. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 146:67242.Google Scholar
Stringer, G. L. 1998. Otoliths-based fishes from the Bowden Shell Bed (Pliocene) of Jamaica: systematic and palaeoecology. Contributions of Tertiary and Quaternary Geology, 35(1–4):147160.Google Scholar