New and confirmed records and rare occurrences of some deep sea fishes in the Turkish waters of the northern Aegean Sea (Mediterranean Sea)

Abstract

There are very few locations in the Turkish waters which are suitable for deep sea investigations and the northern Aegean Sea is one of them. The study was conducted in the Turkish territorial and adjacent waters of the northern Aegean Sea between the years of 2011 and 2019, providing information on the distribution of some deep sea fishes, with their rare occurrences in the area. The results revealed range expansions of some of the deep sea teleosts as well as the first and the second record of some species for the Turkish waters of the northern Aegean Sea. This study provides the first record of Mora moro (Risso, 1810) for the Aegean Sea. The study also includes the confirmed records of Lestidiops sphyrenoides (Risso, 1820) and Epigonus denticulatus Dieuzeide, 1950 from the Aegean Sea, Stomias boa (Risso 1810) in the Turkish waters of the northern Aegean Sea as well as the second records of Nemichthys scolopaceus Richardson, 1848, Ceratoscopelus maderensis (Lowe, 1839), Lepidion lepidion (Risso, 1810) and Epigonus constanciae (Giglioli, 1880).