Scorpaenidae: BL III A2

Unknown

Egg diameter in µm	Number of oil globules	Diameter of oil globule in µm	Yolk texture	Perivitelline space	Position of oil globule at hatch	Gut length   at eye- pigment stage	Myomeres
720-740 x 625-690	1	120-145	clear	narrow	stern	50% of NL	24

Egg: The light amber oil globule of this egg is clearly seen in Plate A. The egg is only slightly oval. The yolk surface is “goose-pimpled”. No pigment was seen on the embryo. It may be laid in a gelsac, but has not been found in that condition.

Larva: No pigment is seen on the newly hatched larva (B). The 3-day larva has a light band of black pigment edging the pectoral fin (C). B: 1 day, C: 3 days.

Five larvae hatched from this egg, have been barcoded, and are associated with scorpaenids on the dendrogram of South African marine fishes, but no match has been found among currently available adult sequences.

This egg has only been seen five times, but as can been seen from the graph, on one occasion there were 325, and on another, 85 eggs in the sample, suggesting they may be laid in a gelatinous mass. It was not seen in the DHM samples. The few collections suggest it is a late summer and autumn spawner (blue graph). The Park Rynie linked samples only had eggs in the offshore samples, skewed by the two big samples mentioned above. See Section 7.3 and Table 1 of the Introductory Notes, for more information on the linked samples.

linked samples	Offshore	Inshore
Eggs	412	0
Hits	4	0