BACKGROUND DNA barcoding is one means of establishing a rapid, accurate, and cost-effective system for the identification of species. It involves the use of short, standard gene targets to create sequence profiles of known species against sequences of unknowns that can be matched and subsequently identified. The Fish Barcode of Life (FISH-BOL) campaign has the primary goal of gathering DNA barc...

It was studied in Antarctic fishes the anesthetic and/or analgesic actions of central depressors ketamine, fentanyl and thiopental as well as the local anesthetic benzocaine. The drugs were added to aerated marine water at temperatures of 1-1.5 C. Ketamine (15 mg/L) and fentanyl (50 g/L) failed in inducing anesthesia but caused a long lasting analgesia and sedation. Thiopental was required in d...

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are host defense peptides that are well conserved throughout the course of evolution. Histones are classical DNA-binding proteins, rich in cationic amino acids, and recently appreciated as precursors for various histone-derived AMPs. The present study deals with identification of the potential antimicrobial peptide sequence of teleostin from the histone H2A of mari...

Recent studies have shown that elevated CO2 can affect the behaviour of larval and juvenile fishes. In particular, behavioural lateralization, an expression of brain functional asymmetries, is affected by elevated CO2 in both coral reef and temperate fishes. However, the potentially interacting effects of rising temperatures and CO2 on lateralization are unknown. Here, we tested the combined ef...

Spontaneous thyroid tumors in salmonid fishes, which appear to originate as simple hyperplasias, according to Marine and Lenhart (10, 11) and Marine (9), ultimately become invasive and re place fibrous connective tissue, muscle, and bone. Upon treatment with iodine these tumors will regress even after they have become invasive. It is interesting to compare the tumor in fish with thyroidal growt...

Parasitic fish diseases constitute one of the most important problems in fisheries sector. Among fish parasites, cymothoids are obligatory parasites, in­ festing mostly commercially important fishes. They are protandric hermaphrodites and blood suckers, living on the skin, gill filaments, or in the mouth of the fishes. These parasites retard growth and cause emaciation followed by death. Pathol...

The fatty acid compositions of the total lipids of three edible deep-sea fishes, Diaphus watasei, Diaphus suborbitalis, and Benthosema pterotum, were compared with those of a highly migratory fish, Katsuwonus pelamis, to clarify their lipid characteristics and nutritional value as seafood. The mean lipid contents in the three myctophids were markedly higher than was that of K. pelamis. All thre...

Attempts were made to examine the ichthyotoxicity of paralytic shellfish poison (PSP) in sixteen species of marine and freshwater fishes. Most of them showed minimum lethal doses (LD100) ranging from 1-8 MU/20g body weight when injected with a partially purified PSP intra peritoneally. Exceptionally, several fishes such as a goby Acanthogobius flavimanus (LD100, 9-17 MU/20g) and puffer Fugu nip...

Copepods are common parasites of marine fishes, but little information is available on the biology of species that parasitize mesopelagic fishes in oceanic waters. In this study, we report the finding of large numbers of Sarcotretes spp. (n = 2340) in dietary samples of king penguins collected at Crozet and the Falklands Islands. Analysis of penguin food indicates that S. scopeli Jungersen para...

Humans transformed Western Atlantic coastal marine ecosystems before modern ecological investigations began. Paleoecological, archeological, and historical reconstructions demonstrate incredible losses of large vertebrates and oysters from the entire Atlantic coast. Untold millions of large fishes, sharks, sea turtles, and manatees were removed from the Caribbean in the 17th to 19th centuries. ...