Centriscidae: L II A5

Aeoliscus punctulatus (Bianconi, 1855)

Razorfish

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
1150-1320	1	220-265	clear	narrow	stern	61% of NL	20*

* myomere counts are difficult due to pigment, count is from Leis & Rennis (1983)

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Egg: When collected in an early stage of development, this egg is surrounded by a gel that is invisible to my reflected light source. A recent (May 2008) spawning in the display tanks at uShaka Marine World in Durban has revealed that the eggs are laid in gelatinous strands, the eggs aligned in a zigzag pattern(A2)The gel dissolves over about 24 hours, The eggs in Plate A are being kept apart by the coating, which by this stage, was only present on the top two eggs, and no longer keeping eggs together as a strand. The coating gradually reduces in width as the egg develops, and is not sticky, like the coating on pempherid eggs (see LIIA2 and MIIA5). The embryo is sometimes coloured greenish-brown by its dense pigment cover (A). This later becomes yellow-brown (A1).  The oil globule is light amber, but this is often masked by pigment. Incubation is about 48 hours (25°C).

Larva: The early larva (B) cannot be mistaken for any other species, as the two white patches in the caudal finfold are unique for larvae off Park Rynie. The unmistakable 12 day larva (see Leis & Rennis, 1983) is still preflexion (D).  B: 2 days, C: 4 days, D: 12 days (25°C).

Two larvae have been barcoded, matching 4 locally collected adults (BOLD).

Linked samples	Offshore	Inshore
Eggs	31	94
Hits	13	32

Aeoliscus is a summer spawner off Park Rynie (blue graph). The egg was also seen in the DHM samples, where one sample yielded 20 eggs (green graph). Over theyears 2000 to 2008 this egg has shown a significant increase in presence off Park Rynie, but in the last 3 years has been less common (white graph). The Park Rynie linked samples yielded more eggs inshore (75%), suggesting spawning around the 15m contour, consistent with their distribution on sand adjacent to shallow inshore reefs (personal observation). See Section 7.3 and Table 1 of the Introductory Notes, for more information on the linked samples.