Elops smithi McBride, Rocha, Ruiz-Carus and Bowen 2010

Elops smithi McBride, Rocha, Ruiz-Carus and Bowen 2010 — Southern Ladyfish

Listed as Elops saurus Linnaeus by Fowler (1951:25) and as "common" by Clavijo et al. (1980:5).

Justification: ANSP 73294 (2) and ANSP 80628 (2), all ANSP specimens based on leptocephali; ZMUC P.17906 (1, 273 mm SL), St. Croix, Jan. 1842.

Distribution: McBride and Horodysky (2004) and McBride et al. (2010) WA (BD*, BA, GA, VI, LA, WC, nSA, sSA).

Remarks: Only one species of ladyfish, Elops saurus Linnaeus, was thought to occur in the western Atlantic Ocean until Smith (1989e) showed that leptocephali from the area had a bimodal distribution of myomere counts, indicating the existence of two distinct morphs. He identified the low-count morph (68–72 preanal and 74–78 total myomeres) as Elops sp. and the high-count morph (76–80 preanal and 79–86 total myomeres) as E. saurus. Although both species are virtually identical externally, they differ in number of vertebrae and, except in areas of sympatry, in counts of lateral-line scales (102–118 in E. smithi versus 119–128 in E. saurus), have distinct mitochondrial DNA sequences and mostly allopatric distributions (McBride et al., 2010). Elops smithi is distributed throughout the Bahamas, Caribbean Sea and northern coast of South America, whereas E. saurus has a more northern distribution occurring in the Gulf of Mexico and off the east coast of the United States.