Serranidae: L III D4

Cephalopholis sonnerati (Valenciennes, 1828)

Tomato rockcod

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
815-865	1	170-190	clear	narrow	stern	52% of NL	24

Egg: The yolk has a rough surface, the oil globule is clear, and there are usually no pigments visible in the egg. It is thus indistinguishable from other serranid eggs, LIIIB4 and LIIID2 in particular, until hatched. Incubation is 24-30 hours, so in summer these eggs are often hatching during the sorting and cataloguing process.

Larva: The NH larva (B) has paired yellow pigment dots behind the eyes and otic capsules, and a smudge of yellow just behind the oil globule. By day 3, there is a conspicuous yellow bar above the gut, similar to LIIIE7, but the larva does not have the beak-shaped mouth of LIIIE7.  B: NH, C: 2 days (26°C).

A single hatched larva has been barcoded, and it matched 5 locally collected E. sonnerati (BOLD reference). Confirmation of identification awaits further larval barcoding results.

The egg has only been recognised on 5 occasions off Park Rynie, but appears to be a summer spawner (blue graph). It was not seen in the DHM samples. Just 6 eggs have been seen in the Park Rynie linked samples, shared equally between offshore and inshore. See Section 7.3 and Table 1 of the Introductory Notes, for more information on the linked samples.