Review of the Lanternfish Genus Notoscopelus (Family Myctophidae) in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean

The genus Notoscopelus includes five species four of which occur in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Two of the latter, N. caudispinosus and N. resplendens, are found in tropical and subtropical waters of all three major oceans. N. elongatus, which consists of the Atlantic N. elongatus kröyeri and the western Mediterranean N. elongatus elongatus, and the fourth species, N. bolini n. sp., which is placed in a new subgenus, Pareiophus, are known only from the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The possibility of the latter two species having differentiated from a N. resplendens-like stock is briefly discussed.