Untitled - Alaska Resources Library

y Sheiko as “B. A. Sheiko, pers. comm. to C.W.M.” (We cite several more recent communications from Sheiko
as well.) Some of the factoids previously cited have since been verified by Sheiko. For personal communications
we indicate to which of us the communication was sent, to enable us to more readily access the records when
readers request additional information.
6) Our own unpublished data from field excursions. These records are supported by voucher specimens,
photographs, or videos. The Mecklenburgs have collected vouchers from resource surveys around Alaska
from the Chukchi Sea to the Gulf of Alaska and from intertidal collecting and angling around their home and
laboratory at Point Stephens, north of Juneau, Alaska; some of these are archived at the California Academy of
Sciences and others will eventually be shipped there or to other permanent collections. Sometimes our records
are documented with photographs and locality and morphology notes only. Many of Love’s unpublished data
relate to observations of California and Baja California fishes from scuba diving and submersible surveys and
most specimens were videotaped.
Order of Presentation
In this inventory, we follow the higher taxon sequence of Nelson’s (1994) Fishes of the World and the American
Fisheries Society–American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists’ (AFS–ASIH) list of continental shelf
fishes of North America (Nelson et al. 2004), which are based on presumed phylogenetic relationships. Within
each family, the genera and species are arranged alphabetically.
Common names of families are given as plural, even though there may be only one extant species in the
family. Several of these families have fossil representatives and some have several nominal species, albeit currently
classified as junior synonyms of one, extant species. Moreover, families are erected to include groups of similar
animals, regardless of number of species known at the time of naming of the family. This usage (plural) follows
Eschmeyer (1998) and Mecklenburg et al. (2002).
Species Accounts
For each species, we give the scientific name followed by the name of the describer(s) and publication date
of the description; one or more common names; maximum size, in total length (TL) if available or in standard
length (SL) or fork length (FL); geographic range; and depth range. For size, geographic, and depth ranges each
datum is followed by its source. Synonym(s) are then mentioned if they have been in recent use in the literature
or are apt to be found in databases such as the online museum catalogs. At the end of an account, comments on
common names, taxonomy, or other considerations may be included.
Scientific name — This includes the currently accepted Latin binomial of genus and species as given in
the most recent classifications adopted by the appropriate specialists; the original namer and describer of the
species; and the date of publication of the name and description. We use the conventions of connecting dual
authors with an ampersand (&) rather than the word “and,” and separating authors from the date of publication
by a comma. These conventions help the reader discriminate between the formal names of species and literature
citations in the text.
When a species’ author name is enclosed in parentheses it means the species was originally classified in a
different genus.
Accuracy of the names and dates was checked in Eschmeyer ‘s (1998) catalog of fish species, the online
editions of Eschmeyer’s database (http://www.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatsearch.
html), and nomenclatural checklists in the recently launched series, California Academy of Sciences Annotated
Checklists of Fishes (http://www.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/annotated/index.html). At this time
(May 2005), the CAS checklists take precedence over Eschmeyer (1998) and the online database, as entry of data
from the checklists into the database is incomplete.
Common names — If more than one common name is in use, the names are listed in alphabetical order
with the recommended name in bold type. For fishes of the North American continental shelf the bolded name
is usually the name given by Nelson et al. (2004); other sources, such as Hubbs et al. (1979) for California fishes
and Mecklenburg et al. (2002) for Alaska, were used for names of deepsea fishes. A few names were coined and
contributed by interested persons for this list.
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