Abstract
Little is known about where anguilliform fishes complete metamorphosis from the leptocephalus to juvenile stage. Conger myriaster leptocephali in the final stages of metamorphosing were collected from the estuarine portions of the lower Rokkaku River and in the northwest region of Ariake Bay. Three metamorphosing leptocephali with PAM/TM ratios of 0.27–0.34 were collected in the lower river, and five (PAM/TM, 0.30–0.46) were collected at sea stations in the bay. The collection of metamorphosing larvae of this species in a river estuary with lower salinity and high turbidity raises the question of how much these habitats are used by the metamorphosing larvae of this marine eel species.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to T. Noguchi, K. Kuno and Y. Kawamura for their assistance with this program. Thanks are due to H. Katafuchi, K. Miyauchi, M. Sashida, S. Oka, A. Toda and our laboratory staff, who helped in investigations. We express our gratitude to T.W. Miller for review of the English and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. This work was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Japan (no. 20580203).
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Yagi, Y., Kodono, N., Kinoshita, I. et al. Late-stage metamorphosing Conger myriaster leptocephali collected in a river estuary of Ariake Bay, Japan. Ichthyol Res 57, 310–313 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-010-0154-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-010-0154-6