Galapagos Species Database

Taxon category: Accepted

Syn.: Histiophorus herschelii (Gray, 1838), Maikaira nigricans Lacepède, 1802, Makaira ampla (Poey, 1860), Makaira ampla ampla (Poey, 1860), Makaira bermudae Mowbray, 1931,Makaira ensis (Lacepède, 1800), Makaira herschelii (Gray, 1838), Makaira nigricans ampla (Poey, 1860), Makaira nigricans nigricans Lacepède, 1802, Makaira perezi de Buen, 1950, Orthocraeros bermudae (Mowbray, 1931), Tetrapturus amplus Poey, 1860, Tetrapturus herschelii Gray, 1838, Xiphias ensis Lacepède, 1800 (Horton et al., 2021).

Origin: Native

Distribution: Atlantic Ocean: in tropical and temperate waters. We follow Nakamura 1985 in recognizing Makaira mazara and Makaira nigricans as two distinct species chiefly because of differences in the pattern of the lateral line system. Many scientists, however, do not recognize this character as specifically diagnostic and consider the latter species as a single pantropical species occurring in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Highly migratory species, Annex I of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (Froese and Pauly, 2021).

• Horton, T. Horton, T., Kroh, A., Ahyong, S., Bailly, N., Boyko, C. B., Brandão, S. N., Gofas, S., Hooper, J. N. A., Hernandez, F., Holovachov, O., Mees, J., Molodtsova, T. N., Paulay, G., Decock, W., Dekeyzer, S., Poffyn, G., Vandepitte, L., Vanhoorne, B., Adlard, R., ... Zhao, Z. (2021) World Register of Marine Species. Available from https://www.marinespecies.org at VLIZ.
• Froese, R. D. Pauly. Eds. (2021) FishBase World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org,
• Grove, J.S. Long, D.J., Robertson, D.R. & Victor, B.C. (2022) List of Fishes of the Galapagos Archipelago, Ecuador. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, 39, 14–22.