Major
Biology
Anticipated Graduation Year
2023
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Parazen is a monotypic genus (i.e., containing only one species) of ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Parazenidae and the order Zeiformes (Dories). It is a deep-water fish with a geographic locality ranging throughout the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Caribbean oceans. Although Parazen is thought to contain only one species (P. pacificus), preliminary data based on observed morphological variation correlated with different regions indicates multiple species. This project, by means of 2-D morphometric, and meristic analysis, investigates morphological variation among Parazen fishes collected from all recorded oceans to gain insight into the geographic variation of this fish, and whether Parazen constitutes more than one species.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Dr. Terry Grande, PhD, biology department
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Geographic Variation and Species Composition of the Zeiform Fish Parazen
Parazen is a monotypic genus (i.e., containing only one species) of ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Parazenidae and the order Zeiformes (Dories). It is a deep-water fish with a geographic locality ranging throughout the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Caribbean oceans. Although Parazen is thought to contain only one species (P. pacificus), preliminary data based on observed morphological variation correlated with different regions indicates multiple species. This project, by means of 2-D morphometric, and meristic analysis, investigates morphological variation among Parazen fishes collected from all recorded oceans to gain insight into the geographic variation of this fish, and whether Parazen constitutes more than one species.