GOLIATH GROUPER (PISCES: SERRANIDAE) FROM THE UPPER MIOCENE URUMACO FORMATION, VENEZUELA

T he goliath grouper (family Serranidae, subfamily Epinephelinae) inhabits tropical and subtropical waters. The Epinephelinae serranids are comprised of about 159 species in 15 genera (Heemstra and Randall, 1993) and are represented in all oceans. According to Heemstra and Randall (1993) the goliath grouper Epinephelus itajara (Lichtenstein, 1822) occurs in the eastern Atlantic Ocean from Florida to Brazil, throughout the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean Sea, in the western Atlantic Ocean from Senegal to the Congo, and in the eastern Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of California to Peru. The maximum size is about 250 cm total length and they can exceed 320 kg in weight. The grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus (Bloch, 1790) occurs throughout the Indo-Pacific region, from the Red Sea to Algoa Bay, South Africa, and eastward to the Hawaiian and Pitcairn Islands, and in the western Pacific Ocean from southern Japan to Australia in the south. The maximum size is about 231 cm total length (Schultz, 1966) and 400 kg in weight (Fourmanoir and Laboute, 1976). These two species are the largest serranids in the world. Sadovy and Eklund (1999) noted that males reach a maximum age of 26 and females 37 years in a population of E. itajara . Fossil specimens of Epinephelus Bloch, 1793 are known only from Caribbean Neogene otoliths (Nolf, 1976; Nolf and Stringer, 1992; Nolf and Aguilera, 1998; Stringer, 1998; Aguilera and Rodrigues de Aguilera, 1999, 2001) and from Atlantic Neogene skeletal remains (Purdy et al., 2001). In this paper we describe the first large and complete fossil neurocrania of Epinephelus itajara and associated bones obtained from the upper Miocene Urumaco Formation (upper member) of Venezuela. These specimens provide an example of a very long-lived tropical marine species, and the explanation for its present amphitropical American …