2 from Argentina (480-1017 mm TL), FSFL EM 46, 303.
Description:
D 120-138; P1 11; GR 6-9+12-13=19-21; BR 6.
HL 11.1-11.2% of TL; ED 2.0-2.1; BD 6.3-7,2; BW 1.9-2.6; SN 4.1-4.3; IO 1.7-1.9; UJ 4.7-5.1; P1L 4.1-4.3; PreAn 34.8-36.7.
Body very elongate and strongly compressed. Pelvic fin and girdle absent. Caudal fin absent, end of body tapering to a poiot (tip often broken and degenerated). Snout prominent and its tip strongly pointed. Mouth large; lower jaw projecting anterior to upper jaw; posterior end of upper jaw extending below anterior margin of eye. Teeth on both jaws large and pointed; teeth on anterior part fang-like, their tips hook-shaped in abults. Palatine also toothed. Eye relatively large, situated close to dorsal margin of head. Interorbital space almost flat. Lower hind margin of gill-cover concave. A single dorsal fin well developed, running from behind head almost to end of body; pectoral fin short and nearly equal to snout in length; anal fin reduced to minute spines buried in flesh in larger fish. Body entirely scaleless. Lateral line descending obliquely at anterior part of body, and running nearer to ventral profile. Gill-rakers knob-like and vestigial. Color of fresh body silvery with metallic reflections, but easily disappears; upper margin of dorsal fin dasky.
Distribution:
A cosmopolitan species usuglly found from surface up to 100 m depth in tropical and warm temperate waters. It is distributed on the continental shelf from northern Virginia to northern Argentina along east coasts of the American Continent. Two specimens were obtained from off La Plata River in our survey.
Remarks:
Maximum size 1.5 m, common to 70 cm (Vergara, 1977). Important commercial species throughout the world, abundant and commercially exploited in southern Atlantic (Parin and Bekker, 1973).