First record of the choicy ruff , Seriolella porosa Guichenot , 1848 ( Perciformes : Centrolophidae ) in Brazilian waters

A female specimen of choicy ruff, Seriolella porosa, is reported for the first time in Brazilian waters, 384 mm total length captured by the bottom trawl commercial fishery on August 12, 2007, at 36 meters local depth off the São Paulo coast, southeastern Brazil (23o49'56''S; 45o53'24''W). The occurrence may be uncommon, probably associated with a branch of cold water of the Malvinas current.


Introduction
The family Centrolophidae is composed by seven genera with about 27 species, although Schedophilus and Seriolella were regarded as sister taxa by Doiuchi et al. (2003), being epi-, meso-and benthopelagic fishes of tropical and temperate seas.They are found in the continental shelf and near oceanic islands (HAEDRICH, 1967;HAEDRICH 2002;HAEDRICH;HORN 1972;NELSON, 2006).In the southwest Atlantic, the occurrence of the genus Seriolella is restricted to Uruguayan and Argentinean continental shelf waters (35 -50 o S), where two species, Seriolella porosa and S. caerulea were validated by Cousseau et al. (1993).Some authors ( ; LEWIS 2005; MENNI; LOPEZ 1984) have cited the South American choicy ruff as S. puncata, although S. porosa might be considered the valid species (COUSSEAU et al., 1993).Seriolella porosa was formerly captured as bycatch, but became an important fishery resource in recent years in Argentina (GARCIARENA;PERROTA, 2002).

Material and methods
In the present report, one female specimen, 384 mm total length (Figure 1) was captured by a bottom trawl commercial fishery on August 12 th , 2007.Local depth was 36 meters near Montão de Trigo Island off the São Paulo coast, southeastern Brazil (23º49'56''S; 45º53'24''W) (Figure 2).

Results and discussion
According Garciarena and Perrota (2002), S. porosa attains a maximum size of 491 mm.Characteristics that confirm the specimen as S. porosa are the seven (7) spines in the first dorsal fin and thirty-five (35) rays in the second dorsal fin, the three (3) spines and twenty-two ( 22) rays in the anal fin, the twenty-one (21) rays in the pectoral fin, twenty-one (21) gill rakers, no caudal keels, lateral line with ninety-six (96) scales, eye diameter (34.5 mm) and body depth (90 mm).In the southwest Atlantic the only similar species is Seriolella caerulea, which is a coastal species and southernmost distributed in latitudes higher than 46 o S. Seriolella porosa is more abundant in lower latitudes (northward 46 o S) and deep waters of the continental shelf (COUSSEAU et al., 1993).Another diagnostic feature that distinguishes both species is the body proportion, being the body width of S. porosa more than three times the body length as proposed by Cousseau et al. (1993).This record extends the limit of the species distribution to southeastern Brazil (23 o S), although the occurrence may be uncommon, as there is a considerable fishing activity along the continental shelf of southern and southeastern Brazil, including bottom trawling, gillnet, purse seine, among other fishing gears, and S. porosa was never recorded before in Brazilian waters.During the winter, cold water of the Malvinas current, a branch of Subantarctic water, can reach 30 o S in southern Brazil (CASTELLO; MÖLLER JR., 1977;SEELIGER et al., 1997), and some isolated individuals of S. porosa may come to the southern and even southeastern region of Brazil along with the boundaries of the Malvinas current, more specifically with the cold water of the continental shelf, a coastal branch of the Malvinas current, which can explain the presence of the species in the present report, given that the capture occurred during winter.The specimen is stored in the Zoological collection of Santa Cecília University (Unisanta) -AZUSC 2636.

Conclusion
The distribution of the choicy ruff, Seriolella porosa was extended from the anterior report of 35ºS to 20ºS in the Southeastern Brazil.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Distribution of Seriolella porosa in the Atlantic coast (dashed area).The X shows the record in the present study.