Two Species of Chondracanthid Copepods (Poecilostomatoida) Parasitic on Commercial Fishes in the Pacific

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Abstract
Several years ago Prof. R.L.C. Pilgrim of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, sent me some specimens of parastic copepods for identification. Among them were four specimens of Chondracanthus taken from the buccal cavity of the Hoki, Macruronus novaezelandiae. Hoki is the most abundant deep water commerical fish in New Zealand and it is marketed chiefly as an ingredient for making surimi. According to FAO Yearbook (1988), 104, 403 tons of hoki were landed in 1986 (the most recent available statistics). Recently, Dr. ]. B. Jones of the Fisheries Research Center in Wellington, New Zealand, informed me of the discovery of "Ch~ndracanthus palpifer Wilson?" in the buccal carity of hoki. A close examination of his collection together with those collected by Prof. Pilgrim revealed that they are close to, but not identifialbe with C. palpifer, which is known essentially from the Pacific hake (Merluccius productus) (Kabata and Ho, 1981; Sankurathri et al., 1983). Pacific hake is one of the major commercial fishes from the eastern North Pacific, with a landing of 186, 302 tons in 1986 (FAO Yearbook, 1988). The specimens of Chondracanthus taken from New Zealand hoki is identical with "Chondracanthus palpifer Wilson, 1912" reported by Villalba and Fernandez (1985) from another hoki, Macruronus magellanicus, off the southern coast of Chile. But, nevertheless, they are not identifiable with the genuine C. palpifer. They represent a new species and will be called Chondracanthus australis. It should be pointed out that C. palpifer reported form the Argentine hake (Merluccius hubbsi) by Brain (1944) and Szidat (1961) are also misidentification. In other words, C. palpifer is confined to the North Pacific. In this paper I shall give a redescription of C. palpifer in addition to description of the new species. The redescription is prepared based on the examinations of the holotype (deposited in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washigton, D.C.), and the specimens newly collected off the coast of southern California. In the following, a complete description is given of the female and for the male, only those features showing sexual dimorphism are mentioned. Since C. palpifer was claimed by Szidat (1961) and Kabata and Ho (1981), and

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