Deep sea ichthyofauna from eastern mediterranean sea, egypt: update and new records

Deep sea ichthyofauna from Eastern Mediterranean Sea, Egypt Update and new records Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Research (2016) 42, 479–489 HO ST E D BY National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries[.]

FULL LENGTH ARTICLE

Deep-sea ichthyofauna from Eastern

Mediterranean Sea, Egypt: Update and new records

Mahmoud M.S Farrag

Marine Science & Fishes branch, Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University (Assiut Branch), 71524 Assiut, Egypt

Received 29 February 2016; revised 21 December 2016; accepted 21 December 2016

Available online 13 January 2017

KEYWORDS

New records;

Deep-sea ichthyofauna;

Mediterranean Sea;

Egypt

Abstract This work sheds light on deep sea resources that update the list of deep sea ichthyoids fauna with new records from the Egyptian coast, Mediterranean Sea Fish samples were collected from April to November 2015 at depths of 350–750 m using deep red shrimp bottom trawlers The presented fauna were constituted mainly of deep red shrimp (Aristeomorpha folicea and Aristeus antennatus) as target species followed by by-catch and discards which were represented by 36 fish species; Of them, 21 species were recorded previously The rest of the species, were new ichthy-ofauna identified in fifteen species including 4 cartilaginous species (Centrophorus uyato, Etmopterus spinax, Hydrolagus mirabilis and Chimaera monstrosa), while the other 11 species were bony fishes (Chauliodus sloani, Diaphus metopoclampus, Sudis hyaline, Microstoma microstoma, Chlorophthal-mus agassizi, Avocettina infans, Argyropelecus hemigymnus, Notacanthus bonaparte, Lampanyctus crocodilus, Centrolophus niger and Nettastoma melanurum) Centrophorus uyato was reported for the first time in the Levant Basin The present findings added new species to the Egyptian ichthyofauna and raised the total known deep water fauna to 38 species, enhancing knowledge about such species requires continuous monitoring and studies on deep sea resources

Ó 2016 Hosting by Elsevier B.V on behalf of National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).

Introduction

The ecosystems of deep sea waters are the target of fish

indus-tries over the world This has resulted in the decrease in fish

communities particularly on the continental shelves due to

over fishing (Merrett and Haedrich, 1997) In the

Mediter-ranean Sea, the exploration knowledge of the deep-sea fauna

was mainly provided by the expeditions of Hirondelle and

Princesse Alice (1888–1922); their ichthyologic data are

reported in Zugmayer (1911) andRoule (1919) The Danish

oceanographic cruises of the Thor (1908) and Dana (1928– 29) also extended investigation from the Atlantic to the whole Mediterranean, even catching deep-sea fish at depths greater than 1,000 m (Taning, 1918) All these cruises increased the knowledge of fish taxonomy and biodiversity (Ryland, 2000) The deep demersal fisheries in western and central parts of the Mediterranean are exploited by trawl fishing that mainly target red shrimp and is carried out in the Spanish and Italian Mediterranean waters down to 800–1000 m of depth; hence, the knowledge comes from scientific research (Sarda and Cartes, 1994;D’onghia et al., 1998;Ungaro et al., 1999) At the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, particularly the Egyptian coast, most fishing activities did not operate at a depth greater than 250 m In addition to that, other demersal

E-mail address: m_mahrousfarrag@yahoo.com

Peer review under responsibility of National Institute of Oceanography

and Fisheries.

H O S T E D BY

National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Research

http://ees.elsevier.com/ejar

www.sciencedirect.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejar.2016.12.005

1687-4285 Ó 2016 Hosting by Elsevier B.V on behalf of National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).

fisheries’ surveys along the western and eastern Egyptian

Mediterranean waters were carried out by ‘‘R/V salsabil”

dur-ing 2008–2010 These studies, which were administrated by the

National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (NIOF) of

Egypt, do not explore deeper water Therefore, a lot of deep

water ichthyofauna remains unknown Recently, the first work

in the Egyptian Mediterranean waters that conducted deep

water at depth greater than 400 m made it possible to catch

deep water red shrimp and other ichthyofauna as by-catch

(Ibrahim et al., 2011) However, knowledge about deep sea

ecosystems is still limited The main objective of this paper is

to update the knowledge of the deep sea ichthyoids fauna in

Egyptian Mediterranean waters through trawling survey

tar-geting deep red shrimp at a depth greater than 400 m

Materials and methods

The deep-sea ichthyofauna were collected from the deep-sea

cruises of the commercial fishing operations in the

Mediter-ranean Sea, Egypt during the spring of 2015 off Al-Arish (5

hauls) and the autumn 2015 off Alexandria (25 hauls)

(Fig 1) The fishing operations were constructed using Italian

bottom trawlers at depths ranging from 350 to 800 m targeting

deep Red Shrimp (Family: Aristeidae), where the fishes are

considered by catch and discard The available ichthyofauna

was collected and preserved in formalin 10% (for small

speci-mens); then identified usingWhitehead et al (1984–1986) and

Fish base (2010) keys Their biometric data were recorded and

the following abbreviations were used: TL is total length, SL is

standard length, D1 is first dorsal fin, D2 is second dorsal fin,

AN is anal fin, P is Pectoral fin and V is pelvic fin Following

that, the new fish species were described in detail

Results The present study has shown species diversity of deep seawater

in the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, mainly constituted of two deep red shrimp (Aristeomorpha folicea and Aristeus antenna-tus) as target species followed by by-catch and discards which were represented by 36 fish species; they were dominated by Merluccius merluccius Of them, 21 species were identified and recorded previously (Table 1) The rest of the species, which were composed of fifteen fish species, were recorded for the first time They included 4 cartilaginous species (Cen-trophorus uyato, Etmopterus spinax, Hydrolagus mirabilis and Chimaera monstrosa) The other 11 species, on the other hand, were bony fish (Chauliodus sloani, Diaphus metopoclampus,

Figure 1 Map showing the study area in the Egyptian

Mediterranean water

Table 1 Deepwater fish species from Mediterranean Sea, Egypt collected during this study (Recorded previously)

Name

F Dasyatidae (I) Sharks and Rays Dasyatis

pastinaca (Linnaeus, 1758)

Common stingray

F Rajidae Dipterus oxyrinchus

(Linnaeus, 1758)

Long nosed skate

F Rajidae Raja asterias (Delaroche,

1809)

Starry ray

F Rajidae Rostroraja alba (Lacepe`de,

1803)

Bottle nosed skate

F Torpedinidae Torpedo tokionis (Tanaka,

1908)

Trapezoid torpedo F.

Echinorhinidae

Echinorhinus brucus (Bonnaterre, 1788)

Bramble shark

F Hexanchidae Hexanchus griseus

(Bonnaterre, 1788)

Blunt nose six gill shark

F Scyliorhinidae Galeus melastomus

(Rafinesque, 1810)

Black mouth cat shark

F Bothidae (II) Bony Fishes Arnoglossus

thori (Kyle, 1913)

Thor’s scald fish

F Congridae Conger conger (Linnaeus,

1758)

European conger

F Macrouridae Nezumia aequalis (Gu¨nther,

1878)

Common Atlantic grenadier

F Merlucciidae Merluccius merluccius

(Linnaeus, 1758)

European hake

F Myctophidae Ceratoscopelus maderensis

(Lowe, 1839)

Lantern fish

F Ophichthidae Ophisurus serpens (Linnaeus,

1758)

Serpent eel

F Phycidae Phycis blennoides (Bru¨nnich,

1768)

Greater fork beard F.

Scophthalmidae

Lepidorhombus boscii (Risso, 1810)

Four spotted megrim

F Sebastidae Helicolenus dactylopterus

dactylopterus (Delaroche, 1809)

Black belly rosefish F.

Trachichthyidae

Hoplostethus mediterraneus mediterraneus (Cuvier, 1829)

Mediterranean slime head

F Trichiuridae Lepidopus caudatus

(Euphrasen, 1788)

Silver scabbard fish

F.

Ommastrephidae

(III) Cephalopods Illex coindetii (Verany, 1839)

na F.

Ommastrephidae

Todaropsis eblanae (Ball, 1841)

na

Sudis hyaline, Microstoma microstoma, Aulopus filamentosus,

Avocettina infans, Argyropelecus hemigymnus, Notacanthus

bonaparte, Lampanyctus crocodilus, Centrolophus niger and

Nettastoma melanurum)as shown inTable 2 The description

of each species is as follows:

Centrophorus uyato (Rafinesque, 1810)

It was previously classified as Squalus uyato Rafinesque, 1810

(Fishbase, 2010) It is a small shark with a long, narrow snout

and an extended inner corner of pectoral fins which are

mod-erately narrow pointed It has two dorsal fins, with one spine

on each; the first dorsal fin is higher than the second one

Anadipose fin is absent Dermal denticles are close-set but

do not overlap They are without stalks, but are thorn-like,

with dorsal rigs converging toward the posterior tip It is dark

grayish brown in color and is paler ventrally The fins are

dar-ker than the upper body with a whitish or transparent tip

(Fig 2A)

Etmopterus spinax (Linnaeus, 1758)

It was previously a member of the Squalidae Family

(Whitehead et al., 1986), but now it has become a member

of Family: Etmopteridae (Fishbase, 2010) Its head is

some-what long with a long snout and a roundtrip, with a narrow

portion in front of the eyes The nostrils are midway from

the snout tip to the eyes The pre-oral clefts and labial folds

are short on the mouth The upper teeth are of a tri-cusped

form and the medial cusp is much larger The lower teeth

encompass a strongly oblique (almost lateral) cusp that cuts

almost the entire horizontal surface Spiracles are a little above

and behind the eyes Gill slits are almost vertical and their

openings are similar in size to spiracles The 1st gill slit is the

longest while the 5th is the shortest The second dorsal fin sits

over the pelvic fin bases The position of the pectoral is almost

above the 5th gill slit An absence of annals fin is recorded The caudal fin with poorly defined sub-terminal notch is on the upper lobe, while the lower lobe is poorly differentiated Der-mal denticles and median spine are obvious Photospheres are present ventrally It is of a brown color on top, with a pale spot between the eyes and a dark stripe along the lateral line Black dominates the lower part with a distinctive dark pattern on the ventral surface A pale spot between the eyes can be seen The bases of the dorsal, pectoral and pelvic fins are dark with the tips of dorsal and ventral lobes of the caudal fin being black (Fig 2B)

Hydrolagus mirabilis (Collett, 1904)

The body is a long whip-like filament at the end of the caudal fin with a short snout The first dorsal fin is short triangular and high, with a strong spine that nearly joins its whole length

at the front The second dorsal fin is long and continues to the position of the upper caudal fin Not more than one-third the height of the first, it is concave in the middle The pectoral fins reach beyond the position of the pelvic fins The anal fin con-tinues to the caudal fin; the latter has narrower upper and lower lobes in comparison with the hind part of the second dorsal finite skin is smooth, except for the denticles on male organs It is of a dark brown color with dark dorsal fins and whitish caudal filament (Fig 2C)

Chimaera monstrosa (Linnaeus, 1758)

This species is very similar to Hydrolagus mirabilis in its char-acteristics, but C monstrosa can be distinguished by its anal fin beingdistinctly separated from lancet shaped caudal fin The second dorsal fin is long with no marked concavity in the mid-dle part It is of a greenish-silvery color on the back and flanks Brown spots are scattered longitudinally; fins are grayish with

a black margin on the dorsal, anal and caudal fins (Fig 2D)

Table 2 Deepwater fish species from Mediterranean Sea, Egypt collected during this study (New records) (N: number of specimens, TL: Total length (cm), SD: Standard deviation

(TLcm) (F: Centrophoridae) Centrophorus uyato (Rafinesque, 1810) Little gulper shark 350–700 10 66.75 + 16.93 41–90 (F: Etmopteridae) Etmopterus spinax (Linnaeus, 1758) Velvet belly 450–700 10 33.5 + -5.48 22–45 (F: Chimaeridae) Hydrolagus mirabilis (Collett, 1904) Large-eyed rabbitfish 400–700 10 79.3 + 5.9 70–90 (F: Chimaeridae) Chimaera monstrosa (Linnaeus, 1758) Rabbitfish 400–700 15 98.5 + 8.1 90–120 (F: Stomiidae) Chauliodus sloani (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) Sloane’s viperfish 400-700 20 20.4 ± 2.5 18-25 (F: Myctophidae) Diaphus metopoclampus (Cocco, 1829) Spothead lantern fish 350–700 15 7.3 ± 0.75 6–8 (F: Paralepididae) Sudis hyalina (Rafinesque, 1810) Longfin barracudina 350–700 20 38.3 + 3.36 35–45 (F:Microstomatidae) Microstoma microstoma (Risso, 1810) Slender argentine 400–500 25 17.2 + 1.63 15–20 (F:Chlorophthalmidae) Chlorophthalmus agassizi (Bonaparte, 1840) Shortnose greeneye 400–500 5 17.3 ± 1.6 15.8–19 (F: Nemichthyidae) Avocettina infans (Gu¨nther, 1878) Avocet snipe eel 700–800 5 62.7 ± 9.4 50–70 (F: Sternoptychidae) Argyropelecus hemigymnus (Cocco, 1829) Half-naked hatchet fish 400–500 5 3.6 ± 0.4 3.2–4.4 (F: Notacanthidae) Notacanthus bonaparte (Risso, 1840) Shortfin spiny eel 500–600 5 31.4 ± 3.8 28.2–35 (F: Myctophidae) Lampanyctus crocodilus (Risso, 1810) Jewel lanternfish 600–700 3 19.8 ± 3.3 16–21.8

(F: Nettastomatidae) Nettastoma melanurum (Rafinesque, 1810) Blackfin sorcerer 300–400 5 46.2 ± 7.8 34–58

Figure 2 A: C uyato, B: E spinax, C: H mirabilis, D: C monstrosa, E: C sloani, F: D metopoclampus, G: S hyaline, H: M microstoma, I: C agassizi, J: A infans, K: A hemigymnus, L: N bonaparte, M: L crocodilus, N: C niger and O: N melanurum

Chauliodus sloani (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)

Its body is slender with a large mouth that extends far past the

eyes Two ventrolateral rows of photospheres are present on

the body (Fig 2E) The lower jaw is longer than the upper

one; the upper is armed with four fangs on each side The

dor-sal fin extends forward and is close to the head with a

pro-longed first ray A dorsal adipose fin is present near the tail

while the anal fin is close to the tail The length from the snout

to the dorsal fin positions 17–28% (usually 21–24%) from SL

The dorsal, anal, pectoral and ventral fin rays are 5–6, 10–13,

13 and 7, respectively The species is of a silver-blue black

color

Diaphus metopoclampus (Cocco, 1829)

The body and head are compressed with a Sub-terminal mouth

and large eyes A small adipose dorsal fin is present near the

tail A ventro-nuclei (Vn) somewhat extends along the ventral

margin of orbit to reach behind the center of the pupil No

dorsal or anal spines are present The dorsal, anal and pectoral

rays are (15, 14–16 and 10–11), respectively It is of a dark

brown to black color (Fig 2F)

Sudis hyalina Rafinesque, 1810

Its body is moderately elongated with a diameter of about 8–9

times its The head is strongly 3 times more compressed than

the SL The snout is about 3 times the eye width and more than

half the head length The tip of the lower jaw is distinctly

curved upward, with large teeth fixed and armed with serrated

edges Gill rakers are tooth–like The presence of a small

dor-sal fin behind the midpoint of the body is recorded A small

adipose dorsal fin lies near the tail The pectoral fin is long,

about as long as the head and it closely reaches the pelvic fin

base The pelvic fin is slightly in front of the dorsal fin position,

while the anal fin is at the far back The dorsal, anal, pectoral

and ventral rays are 12–16, 21–24, 13–15and 9,

correspond-ingly Body color is silver pink (Fig 2G)

Microstoma microstoma (Risso, 1810)

This species was previously assigned to the Argentinidae

Fam-ily (Whitehead et al., 1986), but now it has become member of

the Microstomatidae Family (Fishbase, 2010).Its body is

elon-gated with a diameter o fat least 8 times its length It has a

small mouth and large eyes, twice as big as its snout The

dor-sal fin is located well behind the midpoint of the body An

adi-pose dorsal fin is not present The pectoral fins are high up on

the flank, just below the lateral line The pelvic fins exist

slightly before the position of the dorsal fin The anal fin is

short and comes slightly behind the dorsal fin base It is larger

and more adherent than the other fins; it also extends to the

caudal fin No dorsal or anal spines exist The dorsal and anal

rays are 11 and 7–9, respectively It is silver in color (Fig 2H)

Chlorophthalmus agassizi Bonaparte, 1840

Its body is somewhat compressed with a robust and depressed

head with large elliptical eyes, that are directed dorsolaterally

Its horizontal orbit diameter exceeds its snout’s length; the lat-ter is broad and spatulate It encompasses a narrow inlat-ter- inter-orbital space It’s lower jaw projects beyond its upper one and ends in a bony knob Teeth in the jaws are very small, con-ical and depressible Pelvic fins are located slightly behind the dorsal fin’s position Adipose fin is opposite to the anal fin Caudal fin is forked The measurements were found to be: dor-sal fin-rays 10–12, anal finrays 7–9, pelvic fin rays 8–9 and pec-toral fin rays 15–17 Its coloris yellowish to brown with darker blotches; eyes are somewhat greenish (Fig 2I)

Avocettina infans (Gu¨nther, 1878) The body is very elongated with large eyes and completely lat-eral line It lacks the preopercle The dorsal and anal fins are united with the caudal fin The jaws are extremely long but the lower jaw is shorter than the upper The frontals are partly united in some specimens The pectorals are small The anus is

a short distance behind the pectoral fin No dorsal or anal spines are present, but it has a linearly reduced caudal The dorsal and anal fin rays are 295–310 and 265–275, respectively Body color is dusky brown; the jaws, pectoral fins and lower abdomen are paler (2J)

Argyropelecus hemigymnus Cocoa, 1829 The body is laterally deep compressed with a tubular eye and a vertical mouth, it discovered by deciduous scales The upper pre-opercula spine and lower pre-opercula spine are long, but the upper one extends beyond the posterior margin of the pre-parcel A single posteriorly directed post-abdominal spine with serrate edges bearing small dorso-posterior spine and a well-defined abdominal keel are present The dorsal fin rays are (8), followed by a dorsal adipose fin The dorsal blade

is long, derived from 7 supraneurals The exposed parts of the two posteriors refused together with hooks forming barbs The pectoral fin rays are (10–11) and the pelvic fin rays are (6) The anal fin has two distinct groups of fin rays (6+5) separated by the central AC1 photosphere It is of a dark black color with silver flank (2k)

Notacanthus bonaparte Risso, 1840 The body is slender and elongated with an inferior mouth, pro-duced snout and an inconspicuous lateral line The posterior end of the upper jaw projects beyond the corner of the mouth

as a flesh converted spine The platine and dentary teeth are uniserial The gill membrane is confluent ventrally The first dorsal fin spine is placed behind the pelvic fin base The pelvic fins are united The dorsal fin spines are (5–7), while no dorsal fin rays are present The anal fin spines are (12–14) plus 110–

130 soft rays The pectoral rays count (10–12) Its color ranges from gray to pink, but the edge of gill cover and mouth are darker (2L)

Lampanyctus crocodilus (Risso, 1810) The specimens have a compressed head and body, neadly head depth with a sub-terminal mouth and large eyes A small adi-pose dorsal fin near the tail can be seen No dorsal or anal

spines are found There are no patches of luminous tissue at

the bases of median and paired fins Luminous tissue (other

than photospheres) is restricted to supra- and infra-caudal

glands and sometimes to the base of the adipose fin (Four

VO Dorsal fin rays (13–14), anal rays (16–18), pectoral rays

(13–15); gill rakers 5+1+11, total 16–18 AO 6(7)+7–9, total

13–16.(2 M)

Centrolophus niger (Gmelin, 1789)

The body is elongated with a maximum depth of usually 30%

SL Body has small scales, small head with visible skin pores

and a large mouth with no teeth on palate The snout is slightly

longer than the eye diameter, the caudal fin is slightly truncate,

and the pectoral fin has a dark terminal edge The position of

the dorsal fin is usually well behind the insertion point of the

pectoral fins A single dorsal fin is found with dorsal spines

and soft rays (5) and (37–41) respectively The anal spines

are (3) while the anal soft rays are (20–24) in turn The pectoral

fin rays are (20–21) Its color is dark brown to black; the

med-ian and pelvic fins are darker than the body

Nettastoma melanurum Rafinesque, 1810

The body is very elongated and cylindrical on the interior; it is

compressed on the posterior The anus opening is located

before the midpoint of body The head is long and the anterior

nostril is tubular at the base of the prominent snout tip, while

the posterior nostril is an oval hole at the margin of the upper

eye The gill openings are creosotic and lateral with no

plato-pterygoid teeth Dorsal, anal and caudal fins are confluent

The dorsal fin has a start point over the gill opening The

lat-eral line contains 43–45 parental pores, 7–9 of which are before

the gill openings and 3 supratemporal pores Its color is pale

whitish-brown ventrally with a black margin at the posterior

part of the dorsal and anal fins (2O)

Discussion

The present study is considered an updated work on the

explo-ration of the deep sea resources at a depth greater than 400 m;

it is employed to report new ichthyofauna in Egypt The

result-ing fauna were identified into 38 species; two species of red

shrimp were considered as the main target, while the other

36 species were considered by-catch and discards The two

deep red shrimp species and twenty one species presented in

Table 1 were recorded prevesoiuly and agreed with those

reported byIbrahim et al (2011) The new ichthyofauna

pre-sented here (Table 2), were discussed to be confirmed

Cen-trophorus uyato has the same characteristics of that studied

by Whitehead et al (1986), Compagno et al (1989)(http://

www.fishbase.org/summary/Centrophorus-uyato) and White

et al (2008) It is distributed in different locations (Western

Central Atlantic, south of Mozambique, Gulf of Mexico,

East-ern Atlantic, the WestEast-ern Mediterranean, form Gibraltar to

Senegal, Northern Namibia, the Indian Ocean, Western

Aus-tralia, and Western Pacific Australia) (Last and Stevens,

1994) Recently, it was recorded in the Sea of Marmara,

Tur-key (Bilecenoglu et al., 2014)

Etmopterus spinax coincides with the description of Reif

(1985), Whitehead et al (1986), Kabasakal and Unsal (1999)

It showed a wide distribution in Eastern Atlantic, Western Mediterranean to Morocco, South Africa (Compagno, 1984) and the Adriatic Sea byJardas (1984) Its presence in the seas

of Turkey has been recorded byAksiray (1987), Kaya (1993)at

a depth of 730 m; from the central Skagerrak (NE North Sea)

by Bergstad et al (2001),from Tyrrhenian Sea (Western Mediterranean) bySartor et al (2003), from Eastern Mediter-ranean, Greek Ionian Sea (Politou et al., 2003),from Balearic Sea and Ionian areas bySion et al (2004)and from northern coast of Israel (Goren and Galil, 2007) Recently, it has been reported off the southern coasts of Sicily, Central Mediter-ranean Sea (Ragonese et al., 2013) E spinax exists at depths from 70 to 2000 m, but mostly between 200 and 500 m (Mceachran and Branstter, 1984; Bauchot, 1987) Because of its deep-sea dwelling habit, E spinax has been considered a rare bathypelagic elasmobranch and this may be the reason why it hadn’t been discovered before in the Egyptian water, Mediterranean Sea This finding was in accordance to Galil and Goren (1994)from Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediter-ranean and withPriede and Bagley (2000)who recorded E spi-nax, together with G melastomus, between 2300 and 3850 m in the Rhodes Basin and Jones et al (2003)who captured this shark in the Cretan Sea using baited traps as deep as 2230 m The third and fourth species were Hydrolagus mirabilis and Chimaera monstrosa The two species are included in Chi-maeridae which contains about 38 species belonging to the two genera Hydrolagus and Chimaera For H mirabilis; it is distributed in the Eastern and Western Atlantic (Uyeno

et al., 1983) It has been reported in the Faeroe Islands, France, Ireland, Spain (Stehmann et al., 1984) and Namibia, Senegal and West Sahara (Krefft, 1990) In the Mediterranean Sea, the species has been reported off the Southern Coasts of Sicily, Central Mediterranean Sea (Ragonese et al., 2013), then reported from Syrian waters, Lattakia Coast (eastern Mediter-ranean) byHassan (2013) Its features agreed with the descrip-tion ofWhitehead et al (1986), Krefft (1990), Didier (2002)and

Hassan (2013) It is also bathydemersal and lives in deep mar-ine water as found to being accordance withKrefft (1990)and

Hassan (2013)

C monstrosais a common species in different sites of the Mediterranean basin, except for the Egyptian waters (Didier,

1998) It was reported from Italian coasts (Matarrese et al.,

1996), from deep shelf trough of Central Skagerrak (NE North Sea) byBergstad et al (2001), from the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea (Sartor et al., 2003), from Syrian waters (Ali, 2003) and from Balearic Sea and the eastern Ionian area bySion et al (2004) It has been reported off the southern coasts of Sicily, Central Mediterranean Sea (Ragonese et al., 2013), then it expanded to Levantine basin, Aegean Sea coast and Sea of Marmara (Bilecenoglu et al., 2014) and from the Cascais Can-yon Head by Gomes-Pereira et al (2015).Its characteristics and features were in agreement with the description of

Whiteead et al (1986), Krefft (1990) and Møller et al (2010) C monstrosa is the principle species among the dis-carded species (Defra, 2007) This finding concurred with the presence of the current species that had been included in the discarded and by catch of deep water trawlers

The description of Chauliodus sloani was approved by those given by Whitehead et al (1986)and Dalyan and Eryilmaz (2008) It also agreed with what had been found in the Atlan-tic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Western Mediterranean (Gibbs, 1989) It had expanded from Greek territorial waters

of the Aegean Sea (Papaconstantinou, 1988) to different areas

like Turkish waters (Golani, 1996), Northern Tyrrhenian Sea

(Sartor et al., 2003), Eastern Mediterranean, Greek Ionian

Sea (Politou et al., 2003) and from video records southwest

of Cyprus at 2900 m (Galil, 2004).It even sprung from Greece

and Italian coasts (D’Onghia et al., 2003); the Balertic Sea and

Eastern and Western Ionian Sea (D’Onghia et al., 2004) Also,

the same species was reported from Levantine Basin off the

northern coast of Israel byGoren and Galil (2007) Recently,

it was reported from deep-waters of south Sardinia

(central-western Mediterranean) (Follesa et al., 2011) and from the

Catalan Sea at depths ranging from 423 to 1175 m using

bot-tom trawls (Papiol et al., 2012) It seems that the species was

distributed widely in Mediterranean Sea, particularly from

deeper waters in accordance with the present results

Information about Diaphus metopoclampus was found to be

in agreement with that ofWhitehead et al (1986)andHulley

(1990) It was found in Western Atlantic, Eastern Atlantic,

Western Mediterranean, and South Africa, Western Indian

Ocean, Western Pacific, New South Wales, Australia (Paxton

et al., 1989); New Zealand (Paulin et al., 1989) and recently

from Mediterranean Sea, Greece (D’Onghia et al., 2003)

Concerning the species of Sudis hyalina, it was in complete

agreement with those reported byPost (1984)andMoore et al

(2003) It was first reported by Tortonese (1970) in the

Mediterranean Sea, and then identified in the Museum of

Nat-ural History of Beirut (Lebanon) byMouneimne (1977) It was

later extended to Levant Basin (Golani, 1996) off the Turkish

coast (Bilecenoglu et al., 2002), Italian marine waters

(Psomadakis et al., 2006), Eastern Aegean Sea

(Corsini_Foka, 2009) and the deep waters of the

Central-Western Mediterranean, off south Sardinia (Follesa et al.,

2011) and the Eastern Ionian Sea (Mytilineou et al., 2013) It

had also been reported off Liguria Sea, Western

Mediter-ranean as discard of traditional long lines (Garibaldi, 2015)

These records indicate a wide distribution all over the

Mediter-ranean Sea; however, until now this species has never been

recorded in Egypt Regarding the species of Microstoma

microstoma, it showed more similarity with that of Cohen

(1986), it is probably distributed in tropical and subtropical

seas, Eastern Atlantic, and Southern Ireland It was also

scat-tered across the Western Mediterranean, Madeira Islands, the

Western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico (Rass, 1971), Western

Paci-fic, Australia (Paxton et al., 1989), New Zealand (Paulin et al.,

1989), Aegean Sea coast (Bilecenoglu et al., 2014) and recently

at Eastern Mediterranean Sea, off Rass Albassit harbor,

Syr-ian Coast (Ali et al., 2014)

The short nosed and green eyed Chlorophtalmus agassizi

Bonaparte, 1840 showed similar description with what had

been described by Whitehead et al (1986), Mnasri et al

(2010), D’Onghia et al (2011) andInnal et al (2012), hence

confirming its identification This species is found on the

west-ern and eastwest-ern sides of the Atlantic Ocean (Robins and Ray,

1986), it is known from Spain to Senegal and around Canary

Islands (Sulak, 1984) In the Mediterranean Sea, it is

dis-tributed among western regions as a rare species (Stefanescu

et al., 1994) It was reported in the Southern Gulf of Gabe`s,

Tunisian waters (Ben Othman, 1971, 1973) then confirmed

by Mnasri et al (2010) in central and northern areas

(Bourgeois and Farina, 1961; Azouz, 1971, 1974) Moreover,

it was reported as by catch species in central regions

(D’Onghia et al., 2006) and in Eastern Mediterranean Sea

(Anastasopoulou and Kapiris, 2008) Its presence has generally been recorded by several authors in various countries of the Mediterranean Sea like Greek waters (Taaning, 1918; Kaspiris, 1973), Balearic Islands (Merella et al., 1997) the Ionian Sea, which was very abundant,(Anonymous, 1999; D’Onghia et al., 2003, 2006; Anastasopoulou et al., 2006) Santa Maria di Leuca, Mediterranean Sea by D’Onghia

et al (2011) and Turkish parts as Aegean Sea (Filiz and Bilge, 2004; Bilecenoglu et al., 2014) and Antalya Gulf (Innal

et al., 2012).These findings reflect a wide distribution in the Mediterranean Sea, but without any record in the Egyptian coast

Regarding Avocettina infans, the information about it was found to be in agreement with that ofNelson (1994).Its dis-tributed circum globally, in tropical to temperate waters, at the Northeast Pacific: Queen Charlotte Islands, British Colom-bia, Canada to Central Mexico, including the Gulf of Califor-nia (Charter, 1996) and New England (Moore et al., 2003) Its distribution indicates no record of it in Egypt While the spe-cies of Argyropelecus hemigymnus showed similar characteris-tics with what had been described byWhitehead et al (1986)

andMoore et al (2003).It is distributed throughout the East-ern North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, particularly in the western basin (Whitehead et al., 1986).It had also been reported in Greece and on the Italian coasts by D’Onghia

et al (2003), Balertic Sea and Western Ionian Sea (D’Onghia

et al., 2004) and also at the Levantine basin, Sea of Marmara and Aegean Sea (Bilecenoglu et al., 2014)

The reported description of Notacanthus bonaparte Risso,

1840 was found to be in agreement with what had been described bySulak (1986)andBasusta et al (2002a) It is dis-tributed in Northeast Atlantic and Western Mediterranean by

Isbert et al (2015) It is only recorded from the deep water of Ionian Sea, Eastern Mediterranean by Kaspiris (1973) and

Matarrese et al (1996) It was also reported in Iceland (Whitehead et al., 1986), the Tyrrhenian Sea (Western Mediterranean)Sartor et al (2003)North East Mediterranean Sea byBasusta et al (2002a)and the Italian coasts (D’Onghia

et al., 2003) It was also recently recorded in the Turkish Aegean Sea and Sea of Marmara (Bilecenoglu et al., 2014) Lampanyctus crocodiluswas distributed in the Atlantic and was considered as an endemic Mediterranean fish species No record of it was made in Egypt (Whitehead et al., 1986)

Carpine (1970)sampled it off Nice trawling at depths between

2200 and 2400 m In the Mediterranean Sea,Moranta et al (1998)reported its occurrence in the Balearic Islands at a max-imum depth of 1800 m from the Tyrrhenian Sea (Sartor et al.,

2003), Balertic Sea, Eastern and Western Ionian Sea (D’Onghia et al., 2004) and the Catalan Sea (Balearic Basin,

NW Mediterranean) at depths from 423 to 1175 m using bot-tom trawls (Papiol et al., 2012) Recently, it has been reported from the Levantine basin, Aegean Sea coast and Sea of Mar-mara (Bilecenoglu et al., 2014)

Measurements and descriptions recorded about Centrolo-phus niger agreed with those of Haedrich (1986), Golani

et al (2006), Froese and Pauly (2009) and Ceyhan and Akyol (2011) The present species was caught by shrimp bot-tom trawl at depth from 300 to 400 m indicating that it is a meso-pelagic species It is widely spread throughout the Atlan-tic ocean (Mackay, 1972; Karlovac, 1974).It had recently been reported in New England by Moore et al (2003).In the Mediterranean Sea, the first confirmed record of it was by

Karrer (1986); then it was reported in Greece (D’Onghia et al.,

2003) Also, C niger was recorded several times in Turkish

coastal waters in Izmir Bay, Aegean Sea (Akyol, 2008), from

Iskenderun Bay, Turkey (Ergu¨den et al., 2012) and from

Lig-uria Sea and Western Mediterranean as by catch of traditional

long lines (Garibaldi, 2015) Our findings of the distribution

pattern, may suggest that C niger is not widely spread in

dif-ferent countries of the Mediterranean Sea

The last added species here is Nettastoma melanurum which

coincided with the key identification ofBasusta et al (2002a)

It is distributed in Eastern Atlantic, northward to Portugal and

the Western Mediterranean (Whitehead et al., 1986) and in

New England by Moore et al (2003).It was also found in

the Eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey (Basusta et al.,

2002b), Greece and the Italian coasts (D’Onghia et al.,

2003), the Balertic Sea and Eastern and Western Ionian Sea

(D’Onghia et al., 2004) and off the south-eastern Sardinian

waters (central-western Mediterranean) byPorcu et al (2013)

As mentioned above, the present species showed a wide

dis-tribution in Eastern and Western Atlantic Ocean, South

Africa, Western Mediterranean and in some locations in

East-ern Mediterranean, without any record of their existence in

Egyptian waters, as in accordance to Fishbase (2010) This

indicates that the deepest ichthyofauna is of Atlantic origins

Their presence in eastern parts along with their absence in

cer-tain locations still remains a question To understand that, we

must observe the general history of the deep-sea exploration in

the Mediterranean which dates back to the end of the

eigh-teenth century (Ryland, 2000) Moreover, the distance from

the Gibraltar Strait as an entry to the shallow

Siculo-Tunisian is still considered a geographical barrier to the bath

benthic and bathypelagic faunal mixing between the west

and east of the Mediterranean, as supported by Galil and

Goren (1994)andTortonese (1964).In addition to that, the

pri-mary production of chlorophyll a concentrations and carbon

fluxes in Eastern Mediterranean is lower than that in Western

Mediterranean (Danovaro et al., 1999) Melley et al (2000)

reported that the nitrogen and phosphate concentrations were

of about 90% and 129% respectively, in the western basin;

that indicated that they are greater than those in the Ionian

Sea due to the oligotrophic Mediterranean conditions On

the other hand, there are many other deep-water Atlantic

spe-cies that had showed widespread in the Mediterranean Sea like

deep red shrimp A rostratus and N aequalis only off the

Balearic Islands, regardless of the different trophic conditions

between the west and east Mediterranean as indicated by this

by Galil and Goren (1994) This may have encouraged the

exploration and exploitation of deep sea resources which had

already been carried out in the Mediterranean Spanish waters

and Italian waters down to 800–1000 m of depth; this

knowl-edge comes from a scientific research (D’Onghia et al., 1998;

Ungaro et al., 1999) In the eastern part of the Mediterranean

Sea, particularly in Egypt, there is a gap in knowledge about

deep sea fisheries at depth more than 400 m dating back from

2011,eventhoughthe Egyptian coast of Mediterranean basin

extends for about 1050 km and is considered one of the longest

Mediterranean shores in North Africa However, this gap in

knowledge may be due to (1) the main fishing ground being

the continental shelf off the Nile Delta; it is of shallower water

and mainly extends from Alexandria to Port Said, it is nearly

in the central coastal line (2) the bulk of the bottom trawler

fleet doesn’t work on depth more than 250 m, where its engine

power doesn’t exceed 450 hp The majority from 100 to 250 hp has no ability to catch deep water fauna, even the few boats of

800 hp concentrated their work in front of Nile delta) lack of fishing gear technology that gives the ability to catch deep water fauna Moreover, the research expeditions administrated

by the National institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (NIOF), Egypt for the demersal fisheries survey along the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, does not operate at depth greater than 250 m Therefore, a lot of deep water ichthy-ofauna remains unknown to this time Recently, the first work

in the Egyptian Mediterranean waters that conducted deep water at depth greater than 400 m was aimed at catching deep water red shrimp using Italian trawl in western and eastern parts of the Nile Delta, disregarding other ichthyofauna as

by catch (Ibrahim et al., 2011).The present results updated this knowledge as it added new deep water ichthyofauna with emphasis on the discards Their presence and absence were checked and confirmed by many studies in Egypt (El-Sayed, 1994; Ibrahim and Soliman, 1996; Rizkalla, 1997; Golani

et al., 2002; NIOF, 2008, 2009; Elramah, 2010; Fishbase, 2010; Zenetos et al., 2010; Ibrahim et al., 2011; Halim and Rizkalla, 2011; Farrag et al., 2014), indicating that these spe-cies are considered new records of deep-sea fishes in the Egyp-tian Mediterranean waters These findings raised the number

of known deep water species to 38 species The number may even be larger, but continuous monitoring and more intensive studies on deep water fisheries are needed to increase the knowledge about our fauna for management and conservatory purposes

References Aksiray, F., 1987 Tiirkiye Deniz Bahklan Ve Tayin Anahtan i U Rekt6rliigii Yaymlan no 3490 Istanbul, 811.

Akyol, O., 2008 New record of the juvenile blackfish, Centrolophus niger (Centrolophidae), from the Aegean Sea (Izmir Bay, Turkey) Cyb 32, 91–92

Ali, M., 2003 Biosystematic and economical study of cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes) in Syrian Sea waters (eastern Mediter-ranean) University of Tishreen, Lattakia, Syria

Ali, M., Saad, A., Reynaud, C., Capape´, C., 2014 First Records of Barracudina Sudis hyalina (Osteichthyes: Paralepididae) off the Syrian Coast (Eastern Mediterranean) J Ichthy 54 (10), 786–

789

Anastasopoulou, A., Kapiris, K., 2008 Feeding ecology of the short nose green eye Chlorophthalmus agassizi Bonaparte, 1840 (Pisces: Chlorophthalmidae) in the eastern Ionian Sea (eastern Mediter-ranean) J Appl Ichthyol 24, 170–179

Anastasopoulou, A., Yiannopoulos, C., Megalofonou, P., Papacon-stantinou, C., 2006 Distribution and population structure of the Chlorophthalmus agassizi (Bonaparte, 1840) on an unexploited fishing ground in the Greek Ionian Sea J Appl Ichthyol 22 (6), 521–529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0426.2006.00782.x Anonymous, 1999 Developing deep-water fisheries: data for their assessment and for understanding their interaction with and impact

on a fragile environment EC FAIR project CT 95–0655 Final Report of Partner No 6.National Centre for Marine Research, Greece, 144 p.

Azouz, A., 1971 Etude des biocoenoses benthiques et de la faune ichtyologique des fonds chalutables de la Tunisie, re´gion nord et sud – est (Ph.D thesis), Universite´ de Caen, 243.

Azouz, A., 1974 Les fonds chalutables de la region nord de la Tunisie 2 Potentialite´s de la peˆche, e´cologie et re´partition bathyme´trique des poissons Bulletin de l’Institut national

scien-tifique et technique d’Oce´anographie et de Peˆche de Salammboˆ, 3

(1–4), 29–94.

Basusta, N., Turan, C., Gurlek, M., 2002a A new fish record from

the Levant sea: the short fin spiny eel Notacanthus bonaparte

Risso, 1840 (Notacanthidae) Isr J Zool 48 (1p (246 No.))

Basusta, N., Turan, C., Gurlek, M., 2002b A new fish record from

Turkish Seas: the Black fin Sorcerer Nettastoma melanurum

Rafinesque, 1810 (Nettastomidae) Turk J Veter Anim Sci 26,

1185–1187

Bauchot, M.L., 1987 Poissons osseux, in Fiches FAO

d’Identifica-tion pour les Besoins de la Peˆche (Rev 1) Me´diterrane´ et Mer

Noire, Zone de Peˆche 37 In: Fischer, W., et al (Eds.), Rome,

Comm Commun Eur FAO, vol 2, pp 891–1421 http://dx.doi.org

Ben Othman, S., 1971 Observations hydrologiques, dragages et

chalutages dans le sud-est tunisien Bulletin de l’Institut national

scientifique et technique d’Oce´anographie et de Peˆche de Salammboˆ

2 (2), 103–120

Ben Othman, S., 1973 Le sud tunisien (golfe de Gabe`s), hydrologie,

se´dimentologie, flore et faune Faculte´ des Sciences de Tunis,

Tunisia, p 166 (Ph.D thesis)

Bergstad, O.A., Wik, A.D., Hildre, O., 2001 Predator-Prey Relations

and Food Sources of the Skagerrak Deep-Water Fish Assemblage.

North Atlan Fish Org., Sci Council Meeting (Sept., 2001),

(Deep-Sea Fish Symp.– Oral), 1–20p.

Bilecenoglu, M., Taskavak, E., Mater, S., Kaya, M., 2002 Checklist

of the marine fishes of Turkey Zootaxa 113, 1–194

Bilecenoglu, M., Kaya, M., Cihangir, B., Cicek, E., 2014 An updated

checklist of the marine fishes of Turkey Turk J Zool 38, 901–929.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3906/zoo-1405-60

Bourgeois, F., Farina, L., 1961 Rapport au gouvernement de la

Tunisie concernant les essais de chalutage au large des coˆtes

tunisiennes Rapport FAO/EPTA 1410, 31 p.

Carpine, C., 1970 Une expe´rience de chalutage profond Bull Inst.

Oce´anogr Monaco 69 (1408), 1–16

Ceyhan, T., Akyol, O., 2011 Occurrence of the blackfish,

Centrolo-phus niger (Gmelin 1789) (Osteichthyes: Centrolophidae), in Izmir

Bay, Aegean Sea J Appl Ichthyol 27, 139–140 http://dx.doi.org/

10.1111/j.1439-0426.2010.01579.x

Cohen, D.M., 1986 Argentinidae In: Smith, M.M., Heemstra, P.C.

(Eds.), Smiths’ Sea fishes Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp 215–216

Compagno, L.J.V., 1984 FAO Species Catalogue Sharks of the

world An annotated and illustrated catalogue of shark species

known to date.Part1- Hexanchiformes to Lamniformes FAO Fish.

Synopsis 125 (4/1), 1–249

Compagno, L.J.V., Ebert, D.A., Smale, M.J., 1989 Guide to the

Sharks and Rays of Southern Africa New Holland (Publ.) Ltd.,

London, p 158

Corsini_Foka, M., 2009 Uncommon fishes from Rhodes and nearby

marine region (SE Aegean Sea, Greece) J Biol Res Thessaloniki

12, 125–133

D’onghia, G., Tursi, A., Maiorano, P., Matarrese, A., Panza, M.,

1998 Demersal fish assemblages from the bathyal grounds of

Ionian Sea (middle-eastern Mediterranean) Ital J Zool 65, 287–292

D’onghia, G., Mastrototaro, F., Matarrese, A., Politou, C.,

Mytili-neou, Y., 2003 Ch., Biodiversity of the upper slope demersal

community in the eastern Mediterranean: preliminary comparison

between two areas with and without trawl fishing J Northw Atl.

Fish Sci 31, 263–273

D’onghia, G., Politou, C., Politou, C., Bozzano, A., Lloris, D.,

Rotllant, G., Sion, L., Mastrototaro, F., 2004 Deep-water fish

assemblages in the Mediterranean Sea J Mar Sci 68 (Suppl 3),

87–99

D’Onghia, G., Sion, L., Maiorano, P., Mytilineou, C., Dalessandro,

S., Carlucci, R., Desantis, S., 2006 Population biology and life

strategies of Chlorophthalmus agassizi Bonaparte, 1840 (Pisces:

Osteichthyes) in the Mediterranean Sea Mar Biol 149, 435–446

D’Onghia, G., Indennidate, A., Giove, A., Savini, A., Capezzuto, F., Sion, L., Vertino, A., Maiorano, P., 2011 Distribution and behaviour of deep-sea benthopelagic fauna observed using towed cameras in the Santa Maria di Leuca cold-water coral province Mar Ecol Prog Ser 443 (95–110), 2011 http://dx.doi.org/ 10.3354/meps09432

Dalyan, C., Eryilmaz, L., 2008 A new deepwater fish, Chauliodus sloani Bloch & Schneider, 1801 (Osteichthyes: Stomiidae), from the Turkish waters of Levant Sea (Eastern Mediterranean) J Black Sea/Medit Enviro 14, 33–37

Danovaro, R., Dinet, A., Duineveld, G., Tselepides, A., 1999 Benthic response to particulate fluxes in different trophic environ-ments: a comparison between the Gulf of Lions-Catalan Sea (western Mediterranean) and the Cretan Sea (eastern Mediter-ranean) Prog Oceanogr 44, 287–312

DEFRA, 2007 Report of the results from UK observer trips in the westerly gillnet fishery for anglerfish Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London 15 pp.

Didier, D.A., 1998 The leopard Chimaera, a new species of chimaeroid fish from New Zealand (Holocephali, Chimaeriformes, Chimaerida) Ichthyol.Res 45 (3), 281–289

Didier, D.A., 2002 Chimaeras In: Carpenter, K.E (Ed.), The Living Marine Resources of the Western Central Atlantic FAO, Rome,

pp 591–599

Elramah, S.A.M.S., 2010 Taxonomy of Sharks from Egyptian Mediterranean Waters Off Alexandria, Egypt, using Molecular Biology Tools (M.Sc thesis) Faculty of Science, Alexandria University

El-Sayed, R.S., 1994 Check-list of Egyptian Mediterranean fishes Natio Instit Oceanogr Fish., 77+IX p Alex (Egypt).

Ergu¨den, D., Yag˘l ıog˘lu, D., Gu¨rlek, M., Turan, C., 2012 An occurrence of the blackfish, Centrolophus niger (Gmelin, 1789), in Iskenderun Bay, (northeastern Mediterranean, Turkey) J Black Sea/Mediterranean Environ 18 (1), 97–101

Farrag, M.M.S., Osman, A.G.O., Akel, E.H.Kh., Moustafa, M.A.,

2014 Catch and effort of night purse seine with emphasize to Age and Growth of lessepsian Etrumeus teres (Dekay, 1842), Mediter-ranean Sea Egypt Egypt J Aquat Res 40, 181–190

Filiz, H., Bilge, G., 2004 Length–weight relationships of 24 fish species from the North Aegean Sea Turkey J Appl Ichthyol 20, 431–432 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0426.2004.00582.x Fishbase, 2010 World Wide Web electronic publication ( www.fish-base.org ).

Follesa, M.C., Porcu, C., Cabiddu, S., Mulas, A., Deiana, A.M., Cau, A., 2011 Deep-water fish assemblages in the central-western Mediterranean (south Sardinian deep-waters) J Appl Ichthyol.

27, 129–135 Froese, R., Pauly, D., 2009 Centrolophus niger In: Fishbase Worldwide Web Electronic Publication, Version (03/2009).Avail-able at http://www.fishbase.org

Galil, B.S., 2004 The limit of the sea: the bathyal fauna of the Levantine Sea Sci Mar 68 (Suppl 3), 63–72

Galil, B.S., Goren, M., 1994 The deep sea Levantine fauna – new records and rare occurrences Senckenb Marit 25, 41–52

Garibaldi, F., 2015 By-catch in the mesoplagic swordfish longline fishery in the ligurian sea (Western Mediterranean) Collect Vol Sci Pap ICCAT 71 (3), 1495–1498

Gibbs, R.H., JR.,1989 Chauliodontidae In: Whitehead, P.J.P., Bauchot, M.-L., Hureau, J.-C Nielsen, J., Tortonese, E., (Eds.), Fishes of the north-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, vol 1 Paris, Unesco, 336–337.

Golani, D., 1996 The marine ichthyofauna of the eastern Levant— history, inventory and characterization Isr J Zool 42, 15–55 Golani, D., Orsi-Relini, L., Massutı´, E., Quignard, J.P., 2002 CIESM Atlas of Exotic Species in the Mediterranean, vol 1 Fishes, F Briand (Ed.), CIESM Publishers, Monaco, 256 pp.

Golani, D., Ozturk, B., Basusta, N., 2006 Fishes of the eastern

Mediterranean Turkish Marine Research Foundation (Publication

No 24), Istanbul, Turkey, p 259

Gomes-Pereira, J.N., Tojeira, I., Ribeiro, L.P., Santos, R.S., Dias, F.,

Tempera, F., 2015 First in situ observations of soft bottom

megafauna from the Cascais Canyon head, Arquipelago Life Mar.

Sci 32, 67–74

Goren, M., Galil, B.S., 2007 Is the eastern Mediterranean deep-sea

desert? Rapp Comm Int Mer Medit 38 (489), 1

Haedrich, R.L., 1986 Centrolophidae In: Whitehead, P.J.P.,

Bau-chot, M.-L., Hureu, J.-C., Nielsen, J., Tortonose, E (Eds.), In:

Fishes of the North-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, vol.

III UNESCO, Paris, pp 1177–1182

Halim, Y., Rizkalla, S., 2011 Aliens in Egyptian Mediterranean

waters A check-list of Erythrean fish with new records Medit.

Mar Sci., 479–490 http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/mms.46

Hassan, M., 2013 Occurrence of large-eyed rabbitfish Hydrolagus

mirabilis, Chimaeridae, in Syrian waters (eastern Mediterranean).

Mar Biodiver Rec 7, 1–2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/

S175526721200111X

Hulley, P.A., 1990 Myctophidae In: Quero, J.C., Hureau, J.C.,

Karrer, C., Post, A., Saldanha, L (Eds.), Check-list of the fishes of

the eastern tropical Atlantic (CLOFETA) JNICT, Lisbon; SEI;

Paris; and UNESCO, Paris Vol 1 Doi: http://dx.doi.org/ pp.

398–467.

Ibrahim, M.A., Soliman, I.A., 1996 Check-list of the bony fish

species in the Egyptian waters of Egypt Bull Natl Instit.

Oceanogr Fish., A.R.E 22, 43–57

Ibrahim, M.A., Hasan, M.W.A., El-Far, A.M.M., Farrag, E.F.E.,

Farrag, M.M.S., 2011 Deep Sea Shrimp resources in the South

Eastern Mediterranean Waters of Egypt Egypt J Aquat Res 37

(2), 131–137

Innal, D., Moutopoulos, D.K., Demir, I., Dag, L., 2012

Morpho-metric characters and length-weight relationship for

Chlorophthal-mus agassizi Bonaparte 1840 from Antalya Gulf

(Mediterranean-Turkey) Rev Hydrobiol 5 (2), 111–119

Isbert, W., Montero, F.E., Carrasson, M., Gonza’lez-Sol ı’s, D., 2015.

Dichelyne (Cucullanellus) romani n sp (Nematoda: Cucullanidae)

in notacanthid fishes from the Northeast Atlantic and Western

Mediterranean Syst Parasitol 91, 35–47 http://dx.doi.org/

10.1007/s11230-015-9556-1

Jardas, I., 1984 Adriatic Chondrichthyes by the biogeographical

standpoint Institut Za oceanografijue ribarstvo- split Sfr

jugoslav-ija 59, 1–7

Jones, E.G., Tselepides, A., Bagley, P.M., Collins, M.A., Priede, I.G.,

2003 Bathymetric distribution of some benthic and benthopelagic

species attracted to baited cameras and traps in the deep eastern

Mediterranean Mar Ecol Prog Ser 251, 75–86

Kabasakal, H., Unsal, N., 1999 Observation on Etmopterus spinax

(Pisces: Squalidae), from the north-eastern Aegean Sea

Biljeske-Notes Instiut Za Oceanografijue I Ribarstvo- Split 81, 1–12

Karlovac, J., 1974 The juvenile stage of the species Centrolophus

niger (Gmelin) found in the plankton of the middle Adriatic Bilj.

Notes Inst Oceanogr Ribar 32, 1–7

Karrer, C., 1986 Occurrence of the barrelfish, Hyperoglyphe

perciformis (Teleostei, Perciformes, Stromateoidei), in the

Mediter-ranean Sea and off Portugal Cyb 10, 77–83

Kaspiris, P., 1973 Distribution to the study of Osteichthyes of the

Corinthiakos and Patraikos Gulf and the Ionian Sea (Ph.D.

thesis), University of Patars, 122.

Kaya, M., 1993 An investigation on the deep sea fishes of the Aegean

Sea Tr J Zool 17, 411–426

Krefft, G., 1990 Chimaeridae In: J.C., Quero, J.C., Hureau, C.,

Karrer, A., Post, L., Saldanha (Eds.) Check-list of the fishes of the

eastern tropical Atlantic (CLOFETA) Vol 1 Lisbon: JNICT,

Paris: SEI, and Paris: UNESCO, pp 111–113.

Last, P.R., Stevens, J.D., 1994 Sharks and rays of Australia CSIRO,

Australia, p 513

Mackay, K.T., 1972 Further records of the stromateoid fish Centrolophus niger from the northwestern Atlantic, with comments

on body proportion and behaviour Copeia 1972, 185–187

Matarrese, A., D’Onghia, G., Tursi, A., Basanisi, M., 1996 New information on the ichthyofauna of the south-eastern Italian coasts (Ionian Sea) Cyb 20 (2), 197–211

Mceachran, J D., Branstter, S., 1984 Squalidae In: P 1 P Whitehead, M -L Bauchot, 1 -c Hureau, 1.Nielsen and E Tortonese (Eds.), Fishes of the North-eastem Atlantic and the Mediterranean, vol I UNESCO, Paris, pp 128-147.

Melley, A., Innamorati, M., Mori, G., 2000 Cambiamenti termoalini

e delle risorse trofiche delle acque intermedie Levantine nel Mediterraneo Biol Mar Medit 7 (1), 93–100

Merella, P., Quetglas, A., Alemany, F., Carbonell, A., 1997 Length-weight relationship of fishes and cephalopods from the Balearic Islands (western Mediterranean) Naga ICLARM 20, 66–68

Merrett, N.R., Haedrich, R.L., 1997 Deep-Sea demersal fish and fisheries Chapman and Hall, London, p 282

Mnasri, N., El Kamel, O., Boumaiza, M., Ben Amor, M.M., Capape´, C., 2010 Confirmed occurrence of a rare teleost species in Tunisian marine waters: the shortnose greeneye Chlorophthalmus agassizi (Osteichthyes: Chlorophtalmidae) Pan-Am J Aquat Sci 5 (3), 481–485

Møller, P.R., Nielsen, J.G., Knudsen, S.W., Poulsen, J.Y., Su¨nksen, K., Jørgensen, O.A., 2010 A checklist of the fish fauna of Greenland waters Zootaxa 2378, 1–84

Moore, J.A., Hartel, K.E., Craddock, J.E., Galbraith, J.K., 2003 An annotated list of deep water fishes from off the New England region, with new area records Northeastern Nat 10 (2), 159–248

Moranta, J., Stefanescu, C., Massutı´, E., Morales-Nin, B., Lloris, D.,

1998 Fish community structure and depth-related trends on the continental slope of the Balearic Islands (Algerian basin, western Mediterranean) Mar Ecol Prog Ser 171, 247–259

Mouneimne, N., 1977 Liste des poissons de la coˆte du Liban (Me´diterrane´e orientale) Cyb 1, 37–66

Mytilineou, C., Anastasopoulou, A., Christides, G., Bekas, P., Smith, C.J., Papadopoulou, K.N., Lefkaditou, E., Kavadas, S., 2013 New records of rare deep_water fish species in the Eastern Ionian Sea (Mediterranean Sea) J Nat Hist 47 (25–28), 1645–1662 http://dx doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2013 775372

Nelson, J.S., 1994 Fishes of the World third ed John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York 600 p DOI http://dx.doi.org/

NIOF., 2008 Demersal fisheries survey along the Egyptian Mediter-ranean waters A-West (Alexandria-El Sallum), B-East (Alexan-dria-El Arish) carried out by ‘‘R/V salsabil ” during summer (From 15th to 20th August 2008 and from 23th to 30th August 2008) Report of fishery biology lab, Nati Instit Oceanogr Fish (NIOF), Egypt.

NIOF., 2009 Demersal fisheries survey along the western and eastern Egyptian Mediterranean waters A-West (Alexandria-El Sallum), B-East (Alexandria-El Arish) carried out by ‘‘R/V salsabil ” during winter (From 5th to 12th March 2009 and from 17th to 21st March 2009) Report of fishery biology lab, Nati Instit Oceanogr Fish (NIOF), Egypt.

Papaconstantinou, C., 1988 Fauna Graeciae, IV Pisces Check-list of Marine Fishes of Greece In: Natl Centre Mar Res Hellenic Zoolo Soci., Athens, Greece, p 257

Papiol, V., Cartes, J.E., Fanelli, E., Rumolo, P., 2012 Food web structure and seasonality of slope megafauna in the NW Mediter-ranean elucidated by stable isotopes: relationship with available food sources J Sea Res 77, 53–69

Paulin, C., Stewart, A., Roberts, C., McMillan, P., 1989 New Zealand fish: a complete guide Te PapaPress

Paxton, J.R., Hoese, D.F., Allen, G.R., Hanley, J.E., 1989 Pisces Petromyzontidae to Carangidae In: Zoological Catalogue of Australia, 7 Austr Govern Publishing Service, Canberra, p 665

Politou, C.-Y., Kavadas, S., Mytilineou, C., Tursi, A., Carluci, R., Lembo, G., 2003 Fisheries resources in the deep waters of the