Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria 50(1): 103-106, doi: 10.3750/AIEP/02762
First record of a stranded specimen of the sharptail mola, Masturus lanceolatus (Actinopterygii: Tetraodontiformes: Molidae), from the central coast of Peru
A. Moreno-Méndez, S. Campos-León, P. BéarezCorresponding author: A. Moreno-Méndez © A. Moreno-Méndez, S. Campos-León, P. Béarez. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Moreno-Méndez A, Campos-León S, Béarez P (2020) First record of a stranded specimen of the sharptail mola, Masturus lanceolatus (Actinopterygii: Tetraodontiformes: Molidae), from the central coast of Peru. Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria 50(1): 103-106. https://doi.org/10.3750/AIEP/02762 |  |
Abstract
The Molidae are a widely distributed family, but they are rarely encountered and their distribution and abundance have poorly been documented. A stranded specimen of the sharptail mola, Masturus lanceolatus (Liénard, 1840), has recently been recorded on a Pacific beach in Peru. We examined, measured and photographed the specimen. It is very likely that the presently reported sharptail mola was originally captured by a Peruvian purse seiner or longliner and later discarded as a useless bycatch.
Keywords
Peru, new record, sunfish, morphology, marine biodiversity