Parvilux, a new genus of Myctophid fishes from the Northeastern Pacific, with two new species

A relatively gigantic species of lanternfish, described below as representing a new genus, has appeared sparingly since 1950 in bathypelagic collections from off southern California and northern Baja California, Mexico. Although the distinctness of the species has been known for some time, most available specimens had generally been so badly damaged by the nets that an adequate evaluation of the various characters was not possible. Due to a recent increase in collecting effort in these regions, and to the use of a very large midwater trawl, more specimens have been taken than were before available, and a number of these are in a sufficiently good condition to permit the drawing of rather firm conclusions regarding the reliability and constancy of the characters necessary for the indication of the species as sufficiently distinct to warrant the establishment of a new genus. The accumulated study material has been taken on the various cruises of the research vessels of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and by the Research Vessel "Jonn N. Cobb" during the gear-research and exploratory fishing program of the United States Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. Three additional specimens were taken by the Research Vessel "Velero IV" of the Allan Hancock Foundation of the University of Southern California. In 1952, on the Eastropic Expedition of Scripps Institution, a single specimen of a related species, herein named Parvilux boschmai, was collected in a midwater trawl off northern South America, at about 20 N. Despite the circumstance that numerous hauls have been made by Scripps vessels in the eastern tropical Pacific and off temperate South America, no additional specimens of this species have been secured. We are indebted to several colleagues for help in securing specimens