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MBNMS Fish Species Inventory: new paper published

November 7, 2019: New paper entitled, “Annotated checklist of fishes from Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary with notes on extralimital species,” was published in a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed open access journal ZooKeys.

Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) is host to a diverse fish fauna occupying a variety of habitats. The rich history of ichthyological research and surveys off central California provide a wealth of information to construct the first inventory of fishes occurring within MBNMS. Critical analyses of material from ichthyological collections at natural history museums, the literature, and visual records were essential in creating an annotated checklist of fishes occurring within MBNMS. The checklist provides sources of basis, occurrence of fishes during cold- or warm-water events, records of historically occurring fishes, special places of occurrence (i.e., Davidson Seamount, Elkhorn Slough), introduced species, and reference to original species descriptions from within MBNMS. This inventory provides evidence of occurrence for 507 fishes within MBNMS and an additional 18 species considered to be extralimital. This annotated checklist of fishes can be used by those interested in zoogeography, marine protected areas, ichthyology, regional natural history, and sanctuary management.

Clockwise from top left: Beringraja rhina (Dave Murfin/NOAA), Sebastes ruberrimus (RN Lea), Rathbunella alleni (Steve Lonhart/NOAA MBNMS), Psychrolutes phrictus (NOAA/MBARI).

Images available at: https://sanctuarysimon.org/dbtools/photo-library/index.php