checklist (pdf) - The Love Lab - University of California, Santa Barbara

Ariopsis platypogon (Günther, 1864). Cominate Sea Catfish or Slender-spined Catfish. To 50 cm (19.7 in)
TL (De La Cruz-Agüero et al. 1997). Laguna San Ignacio, southern Baja California (De La Cruz-Agüero
and Cota-Gómez 1998) to Ecuador (Béarez 1996), including southern Gulf of California (Kailola and
Bussing in Fischer et al. 1995). At 6–107 m (20–351 ft) (min.: SIO 65-177; max.: Amezcua Linares 1996).
Originally and still sometimes classified in Arius, also recently in Notarius.
Bagre panamensis (Gill, 1863). Chihuil or Chihuil Sea Catfish. To about 51 cm (20 in) TL (Miller and Lea
1972). Off Santa Ana River, southern California (Miller and Lea 1972) to Isla Lobos de Tierra, Peru
(Chirichigno and Vélez 1998), including Gulf of California (Miller and Lea 1972). At depths of 3 m or
less to 177 m (10–584 ft) (min.: SIO 63-619; max.: Zeballos et al. 1998).
Order Argentiniformes
Family Argentinidae — Argentines
Argentina sialis Gilbert, 1890. Pacific Argentine. To 22 cm (8.7 in) TL (Robertson and Allen 2002). Mouth
of Columbia River, Oregon (Eschmeyer and Herald 1983) to Gulf of California (Schneider in Fischer et
al. 1995); probably northern Peru (Chirichigno and Vélez 1998). At depths of 11–325 m (36–1,066 ft)
(min.: Schneider in Fischer et al. 1995; max.: Wilkins et al. 1998).
Family Microstomatidae — Pencilsmelts
Kobyliansky (1990) and others have presented evidence for combining the Microstomatidae and the Bathylagidae
in one family. Nelson et al. (2004:208), viewing separation of the two sister taxa into families as
a subjective action, provisionally kept the families separate.
Microstoma sp. To 20 cm (7.9 in) SL. Subarctic–transitional eastern Pacific to central Baja California (Moser
and Butler in Moser 1996). At depths of 89–490 m (292–1,608 ft; Clarke and Wagner 1976). Apparently
an undescribed species. Listed as Microstoma microstoma in Eschmeyer and Herald (1983), but not that
species according to Moser and Butler (1996).
*Nansenia ahlstromi Kawaguchi & Butler, 1984. To at least 9.5 cm (3.7 in) SL. Eastern tropical Pacific; well
off shore from Baja California. Depth range poorly understood; a midwater species that perhaps lives to
depths of 754 m (2,474 ft) or more. All in Kawaguchi and Butler (1984).
Nansenia candida Cohen, 1958. Bluethroat Argentine or White Pencilsmelt. To 23.9 cm (9.4 in) SL
(Mecklenburg et al. 2002). (Length is from the paratype of Nansenia sanrikuensis Kanayama & Amaoka,
1983, included by Mecklenburg et al. [2002] as a junior synonym of N. candida.) North Pacific off
northern Honshu, Japan and southern Kuril Islands to southern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska
(Mecklenburg et al. 2002) to northern Baja California (30°N; Kawaguchi and Butler 1984). Primarily
epipelagic and mesopelagic, near surface to depth of about 1,500 m (4,921 ft; Mecklenburg et al. 2002).
A specimen measuring 16.7 cm (6.6 in) TL was collected in July 2003 near Kasatochi Island, Aleutian
Islands, Alaska in a midwater trawl towed to a depth of 83 m over a bottom depth of 1,800 m (5,906 ft)
at 0603 hours (C. W. M. and B. A. Holladay, unpubl. data).
Nansenia crassa Lavenberg, 1965. Stout Argentine. To 26.6 cm (10.5 in) SL. Eastern North Pacific off central
California to southern Baja California; eastern tropical Pacific. Mesopelagic. All in Kawaguchi and Butler
(1984). Larvae taken as far south as just southwest of Cabo San Lucas, southern Baja California (Moser
et al. 1993).
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