Caproidae: L III E4

Antigonia rubescens (Gunther, 1860) (and others).

Boarfish

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
815-890	1	180-190	clear	narrow	stern	56% of NL	24

Egg: The bright, dark amber oil globule, and clear yolk, separate this egg from all but LIIIE5. The embryo develops dense yellow and black pigment, and some black spots are scattered on the yolk near the head of the embryo. There is usually no pigment spotting on the oil globule. Incubation is 25-30 hours.

Larva: The NH larva (B) has an unmistakable combination of black and pale yellow pigment ventrally on the notochord, extending from behind the eyes, to well beyond the anus, where the yellow pigment almost envelops the notochord. In the 3-day larva this latter has split into a separate short section of pigment dorsally (C). A dorsal view (C1) shows the dark pigment in the notochord, and the overall “gold and brown” appearance of the larva. Plate B1 shows myomeres, the smooth finfold edge, and rough finfold texture.  B: NH, B1: 1 day, C: 3 days, D: 4 days, E: 5 days (24°C).

This species was fairly rare off Park Rynie, and rearing attempts were unsuccessful, despite collecting a batch of about 90 eggs on one occasion. A batch of eggs collected in May 2007, yielded 8 larval sequences, 5 of which matched an adult Antigonia rubescens collected locally. The other 3 larvae indicated another, unknown, but closely related species. Another batch of 6 eggs collected in the same sample in May 2007, but counted separately, due to darker chromatophores on the developing larva, have barcoded as a third, closely related species (BOLD reference). Since there are no other species of Antigonia known from South African waters, this result is puzzling.

Linked samples	Offshore	Inshore
Eggs	88	42
Hits	23	11

This egg was not common off Park Rynie, but was seen through most of the year (blue graph). It was not seen in the DHM samples. Annual catches have been erratic (white graph). Park Rynie linked samples showed slightly more eggs offshore (68%), but the percentage is lower than the two indicator species, indicating that spawning occurs on or inshore of the 30m contour. See Section 7.3 and Table 1 of the Introductory Notes, for more information on the linked samples.