Sparidae: L III C5

Pagellus natalensis Steindachner, 1902.

Sand soldier

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
790-865	1	170-190	clear	narrow	stern	35% of NL	24

Egg: These eggs are usually collected with more in the blastula stage (morning spawning), than with a well developed embryo. When fresh the oil globule is pink, but becomes clear to pale amber later. There is a pair of bright yellow blotches behind the eyes, a cluster at the anus and another mid-tail. Sometimes there are a few yellow spots on the nose. Fine black spots run the length of the embryo dorsally. Incubation is 25-30 hours. Mature eggs tend to sink in seawater.

Larva: The three yellow pigment blotches of the early larva (B & C), are similar to P. grande (LIIIB10), but the smaller size of this egg and larva separates them.  The yellow mid-tail patch can barely be seen at 5 days on most specimens (D). The small crest, that is characteristic of Pagellus larvae (Houde et. al. 1986, Leis et. al. 2002), was developed by day 14 (E), and persisted through flexion, to still be present in the 30-day larva (H).   B: NH, C: 2 days, D: 5 days, E: 14 days, F: 19 days, G: 25 days, H: 30 days, I: 39 days (22-23°C).

This species proved quite easy to rear, and several batches were taken through to 30+ days, while trying to discover whether Chrysoblephus puniceus (LIIID5) and Cheimerius nufar (LIIID7) were amongst them. Only Pagellus was reared from these batches. About 24 larvae have been sequenced for DNA barcoding, in a test to establish whether anaesthetising larvae with MS222 would adversely impact on DNA extraction. In addition, 7 larvae from routine collecting have been sequenced. All sequenced as the same species, and provided a species match with 4 locally collected Pagellus natalensis adults (BOLD reference).Two larvae hatched from eggs collected in November 2008 have matched the sequence of 4 Cheimerius nufar collected locally (BOLD reference).

This was the 4^th most common egg off Park Rynie. Winter/spring was the main spawning season, with a peak in August and September (blue graph). The egg was seen on only 3 occasions in the DHM samples (green graph). Annual abundance of the eggs in Park Rynie plankton samples has remained fairly steady (white graph). The Park Rynie paired samples had

Pairs Data	Offshore	Inshore
Eggs	19061	21447
Hits	247	285

more eggs inshore (53%), consistent with my diving observations that this species is abundant on sandy substrates from 15-30m water depth, in the area. See Section 7.3 and Table 1 of the Introductory Notes, for more information on the paired samples.