Marine Fishes of the Azores : annotated checklist and bibliography : a catalogue of the Azorean marine ichthyodiversity

A list of the marine fishes of the Azores is presented. The list is based on a review of the literature combined with an examination of selected specimens available from collections of Azorean fishes deposited in museums, including the collection of fish at the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries of the University of the Azores (Horta). Personal information collected over several years is also incorporated. The geographic area considered is the Economic Exclusive Zone of the Azores. The list is organised in Classes, Orders and Families according to Nelson (1994). The scientific names are, for the most part, those used in Fishes of the North-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean (FNAM) (Whitehead et al. 1989), and they are organised in alphabetical order within the families. Clofnam numbers (see Hureau & Monod 1979) are included for reference. Information is given if the species is not cited for the Azores in FNAM. Vernacular names are always both presented in Portuguese (Azorean names) and English. Synonyms, misspellings and misidentifications found in the literature in reference to the occurrence of species in the Azores are also quoted. The 460 species listed, belong to 142 families; 12 species are cited for the first time for the Azores. Details are given for 23 other species cited for the first time for the Azores in the Red Book of Portuguese Vertebrates (ICN 1993). Fifty-four ambiguous and/or exceptional occurrences are included in an appendix. A second appendix contains the remaining corrections to the checklist of fish included in ICN (1993). The paper concludes with a synthesis and an annotated indexed bibliography of the marine fishes of the Azores. Most references are available through the library of the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries of the University of the Azores.The publication of the present work was funded by the Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica (JNICT)- Lisboa. The research was made possible through grants received from Secretaria Regional da Agricultura e Pescas-Horta (Açores), INVOTAN- Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian- Lisboa, Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento- Lisboa. The work was developed at the Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas of the Universidade dos Açores