Status of the biological and fishery knowledge of <i>Thyrsites atun</i> in the southern hemisphere

Abstract

A comparative analysis and synthesis of the current state of biological and fisheries knowledge of Thyrsites atun in the southern hemisphere is presented. The snoek T. atun, is a pelagic fish of the Gempylidae family, it inhabits cold waters and is distributed in southern sectors of the Southern Hemisphere, where it shows an opportunistic feeding pattern on small pelagic prey. Snoek populations are found in South Africa (SA), Australia (AU) and New Zealand (NZ), but in Chile remains unknown the existence of population units. In Chile sampled fish range in age between 1 and 6 years and size at the first maturity as been estimated at 65.6 cm fork length (FL). The present study concludes that in Chile there is poor biological and fishery information of snoek in comparison to the other countries where this species is also a fishing resource.