Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria 50(2): 227-231, doi: 10.3750/AIEP/02782

First record of Ophichthus rufus (Actinopterygii: Anguilliformes: Ophichthidae) off the western Iberian coast: The northernmost occurrence in the eastern Atlantic

P. Gomes, L. Oliveira, R. Oliveira, H. Silva

Corresponding author: P. Gomes

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: Gomes P, Oliveira L, Oliveira R, Silva H (2020) First record of Ophichthus rufus (Actinopterygii: Anguilliformes: Ophichthidae) off the western Iberian coast: The northernmost occurrence in the eastern Atlantic. Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria 50(2): 227-231. https://doi.org/10.3750/AIEP/02782

Abstract

The first record of Ophichthus rufus (Rafinesque, 1810) in Portuguese continental waters is reported. In February 2013 two specimens were caught by a commercial bottom trawler on the southwestern Portuguese coast and in August 2019 another specimen was caught at the same location. Analyses of diagnostic morphological characters and morphometric characteristics confirmed the specimens as Ophichthus rufus. The distribution of this species has been described in the literature as endemic to the Mediterranean Sea, however other references describe the presence of O. rufus in Principe Island, Morocco, and Gulf of Cádiz. The new finding described herewith represents the first record of O. rufus for the western Iberian coast and also constitutes the northernmost record of the species.

Keywords

Rufus snake eel, Ophichthus rufus, new record, North-east Atlantic Ocean, DNA barcode