Scorpaenidae: BL III A2

Scorpaenodes ? kelloggi Jenkins, 1903

Egg diameter in µm	Number of oil globules	Diameter of oil globule in µm	Yolk texture	Perivitelline space	Position of oil globule at hatch	Gut length   at eye- pigment stage	Myomeres
720-740 x 625-690	1	120-145	clear	narrow	stern	50% of NL	24

Egg: The light amber oil globule of this egg is clearly seen in Plate A. The egg is only slightly oval. The yolk surface is “goose-pimpled”. No pigment was seen on the embryo. It may be laid in a gelsac, but has not been found in that condition.

Larva: No pigment is seen on the newly hatched larva (B). The 3-day larva has a light band of black pigment edging the pectoral fin (C). B: 1 day, C: 3 days.

Five larvae hatched from this egg, have been barcoded, and are associated with scorpaenids on the dendrogram of South African marine fishes. They match two small scorpaenids which are probably Scorpaenodes kelloggi, collected locally in about100m water depth (sequences in BOLD).

This egg has only been seen 8 times, but as can be seen from the graph, three of those samples had 325, 85 and 236 eggs, suggesting they may be laid in a gelatinous mass. Five larvae from the batch of 236 collected in May 2007, have been barcoded. Examination of these barcodes may show the eggs were from the same female. The egg was not seen in the DHM samples. The few collections suggest it is a late summer and autumn spawner (blue graph). The Park Rynie linked samples only had eggs in the offshore samples, skewed by the three big samples mentioned above, but clearly indicating this is a deep-water species. See Section 7.3 and Table 1 of the Introductory Notes, for more information on the linked samples.

linked samples	Offshore	Inshore
Eggs	649	0
Hits	6	0