Pacific Plate Biogeography, with Special Reference to Shorefishes

NUMBER 367
deep temperate and tropical marine waters. Most
species live on sandy or muddy bottoms, but two
species enter and live in freshwater (Fricke,
1981c).
Diplogrammus comprises five allopatric species
(Fricke, 1981a): one restricted to the Red Sea,
one to the Arabian Sea, one to the western Indian
Ocean, one to Japan, and one distributed from
the Ryukyu Islands south to Queensland and east
to the Marshall, Fiji, and Samoan islands.
Pogonymus comprises four species, each known
from a single area (W.P. Davis, pers. comm.):
Hawaiian Islands, Japan, India, Nigeria. The
Hawaiian species apparently constitutes an example
of an Hawaiian exception (for a genus) on
the Pacific Plate.
Synchiropus was revised by Fricke (1981b). The
genus contains 26 species and is found in all
warm-temperate and tropical seas, from shallow
to moderately great depths. The Mediterranean-eastern
Atlantic, western Atlantic, and
eastern Pacific regions each harbor one endemic
species. The remaining 23 species are variously
distributed in the Indo-Pacific, with six species
restricted to the Indian Ocean. Five species occur
nonmarginally on the Pacific Plate, of which one
(S. rubrovinctus) is an Hawaiian endemic, two are
widely distributed endemics (S. laddi: Palau Islands,
Bikini, Rongelap, Enewetak, and Raroia,
and an additional locality, Cuyo Islands, Philippines,
noted by Fricke, in litt.; S. morrisoni: Ulithi,
Bikini, Tutuila), one (S. altivelis) is an example of
an Hawaiian exception (otherwise ranging from
Indonesia and the Philippines north to Japan),
and one (S. splendidus) occurs widely in the western
Tonga, which are on plate margins adjacent to
that of the Pacific Plate, and to S. stellatus, which
is an Indian Ocean endemic. He related S. laddi
to S. postulus and S. minutulus, both of which are
Indian Ocean endemics.
The kaianus species group of Callionymus was
revised by Fricke (1981c). This group comprises
13 deep-dwelling species (most taken at over 100
m) that are confined to the Indo-West Pacific
(east coast of Africa east to Japan, Philippines,
New Ireland, and New Caledonia). Probably no
more than three other species of Callionymus occur
on the Pacific Plate.
CARACANTHIDAE
The caracanthids comprise a single genus, Caracanthus,
with four small (to about 50 mm TL)
species of coral-dwelling fishes. The family is
widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific, and ranges
from the east coast of Africa eastwards to the
Galapagos Islands (Mizuno and Tomiaga, 1980,
fig. 3) in the eastern Pacific. One species is restricted
to the western Indian Ocean, one to the
Hawaiian and Johnston islands, one widely dis-
tributed in the western and central Pacific Ocean
(but not at Hawaiian and Johnston islands), and
one species ranges from the east coast of Africa to
the Society and Galapagos islands (W.N. Eschmeyer,
pers. comm.).
CARANGIDAE
The jacks comprise about 140 species (W.F.
Smith-Vaniz, pers. comm.) of small to large fishes
Pacific, but nonmarginally on the Pacific Plate (maximum about 1.75 m TL) with planktonic
only in the Eastern Caroline Islands (thus provid- larvae. The species are free-swimming and some
ing evidence favoring operation of the Caroline pelagic species are circumglobally distributed
Islands conduit). Fricke did not treat the relation- (Briggs, 1960). Many species limited to the Indoships
of Synchiropus cladistically, but his stated Pacific appear to be widely distributed; however,
relationships of the two widely distributed en- some genera and species are notably absent from
demics are of interest as both were related to the Pacific Plate. In all, 29 species in 14 genera
species that do not occur on the Pacific Plate are present nonmarginally on the Plate.
nonmarginally. He related S. morrisoni to S. ocel- Berry and Cohen (1974, fig. 1) gave the distrilatus,
which is restricted to the Indo-West Pacific bution of the 13 species of Trachurus (reduced to
as far west as Vietnam and as far east as Palau to 12 species by Stephenson and Robertson, 1977,
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