The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™

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IUCN 2008: T60483177A60788228

Rhynchactis macrothrix
Assessment by: Knudsen, S.

View on www.iucnredlist.org

Citation: Knudsen, S. 2015. Rhynchactis macrothrix. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015:
e.T60483177A60788228. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-
4.RLTS.T60483177A60788228.en

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Taxonomy
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family

Animalia Chordata Actinopterygii Lophiiformes Gigantactinidae

Taxon Name:  Rhynchactis macrothrix Bertelsen & Pietsch, 1998

Taxonomic Source(s):
Eschmeyer, W.N. (ed.). 2014. Catalog of Fishes. Updated 10 March 2014. Available at: http://
research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalogfishcatmain.asp.

Assessment Information
Red List Category & Criteria: Data Deficient ver 3.1

Year Published: 2015

Date Assessed: July 8, 2014

Justification:
Rhynchactis macrothix is distributed in all three major oceans of the world between approximately 32°N
and 12°S. It is a meso-bathypelagic species, residing between 300 m and 2,000 m. Little is known about
its population or ecology. There are no known major threats. Based on the limited information, R.
macrothix is assessed as Data Deficient.

Geographic Range
Range Description:
Species of the family Gigantactinidae are meso-bathypelagic anglerfish (Pietsch in press). Species in the
genus Rhynchactis have a wide distribution in all three major oceans of the world between
approximately 32°N and 12°S (Bertelsen and Pietsch. 1998). Rhynchactis macrothrix is known to inhabit
waters as shallow as 300 m and as deep as 2,000 m (Pietsch 2009).

Country Occurrence:
Native: Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; Aruba; Australia; Bahamas; Bangladesh; Barbados; Belize; Benin;
Bermuda; Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (Saba, Sint Eustatius); Brazil; British Indian Ocean Territory;
Cameroon; Cape Verde; Cayman Islands; China; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Colombia;
Comoros; Congo; Cook Islands; Costa Rica; Côte d'Ivoire; Cuba; Curaçao; Disputed Territory (Paracel Is.,
Spratly Is.); Djibouti; Dominica; Dominican Republic; Ecuador (Ecuador (mainland), Galápagos); El
Salvador; Equatorial Guinea; Fiji; France (Clipperton I.); French Guiana; French Polynesia; French
Southern Territories (Mozambique Channel Is.); Gabon; Gambia; Ghana; Guadeloupe; Guam;
Guatemala; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana; Haiti; Honduras; India (Andaman Is., Nicobar Is.); Indonesia;
Iran, Islamic Republic of; Jamaica; Japan; Kenya; Kiribati (Kiribati Line Is., Phoenix Is.); Liberia;
Madagascar; Malaysia; Maldives; Marshall Islands; Martinique; Mauritania; Mauritius; Mayotte; Mexico;
Micronesia, Federated States of ; Montserrat; Morocco; Mozambique; Myanmar; Nauru; Nicaragua;
Nigeria; Northern Mariana Islands; Oman; Pakistan; Palau; Panama; Papua New Guinea; Philippines;
Portugal (Azores, Madeira); Puerto Rico; Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (Ascension); Saint
Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Saint Martin (French part); Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Samoa; Sao

© The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Rhynchactis macrothrix – published in 2015. 1
http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T60483177A60788228.en
Tomé and Principe; Senegal; Seychelles; Sierra Leone; Solomon Islands; Somalia; Spain (Canary Is.); Sri
Lanka; Suriname; Taiwan, Province of China; Tanzania, United Republic of; Thailand; Togo; Tokelau;
Trinidad and Tobago; Turks and Caicos Islands; Tuvalu; United States (Hawaiian Is.); United States Minor
Outlying Islands (Howland-Baker Is., Johnston I., Wake Is.); Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of; Viet Nam;
Virgin Islands, British; Virgin Islands, U.S.; Wallis and Futuna; Western Sahara; Yemen

FAO Marine Fishing Areas:

Native: Atlantic - western central, Atlantic - southeast, Atlantic - southwest, Atlantic - eastern central,
Indian Ocean - western, Indian Ocean - eastern, Pacific - eastern central, Pacific - northwest, Pacific -
western central

© The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Rhynchactis macrothrix – published in 2015. 2
http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T60483177A60788228.en
Distribution Map

© The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Rhynchactis macrothrix – published in 2015. 3
http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T60483177A60788228.en
Population
Little is known about the population.
Current Population Trend:  Unknown

Habitat and Ecology (see Appendix for additional information)

The Gigantactinidae are known for their extreme sexual dimorphism. Males of the Gigantactinidae
family are characterized by their small size. They are considered a dwarf male family with a maximum
size of 2.2 cm, while the females are significantly larger than the males with the ability to reach 43.5 cm
in size (Pietsch in press). In the Gigantactinidae family males are known to attach to the females by using
pincer-like denticles. In this particular family males do not permanently attach and are only attached for
a small period of time (Pietsch 2005).

Systems:  Marine

Use and Trade

There are no known uses for Rhynchactis macrothix.

Threats
There are no known species-specific threats towards Rhynchactis macrothix.

Conservation Actions
There are no species-specific conservation efforts at this time for Rhynchactis macrothix.

Credits
Assessor(s): Knudsen, S.

Reviewer(s): Smith, S. & Polidoro, B.

Facilitators(s) and Comeros-Raynal, M.

Compiler(s):

© The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Rhynchactis macrothrix – published in 2015. 4
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Bibliography
Bertelsen, E., and Pietsch, TW. 1998. Revision of the Deepsea Anglerfish Genus Rhynchactis Regan
(Lophiiformes: Gigantactinidae), with Descriptions of Two New Species. American Society of
Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH) 1998(3): 583-590.

IUCN. 2015. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2015-4. Available at: www.iucnredlist.org.
(Accessed: 19 November 2015).

Pietsch, T.W. 2005. Dimorphism, parasitism, and sex revisited: modes of reproduction among deep-sea
ceratioid anglerfishes (Teleostei: Lophiiformes). 52(3): 207-236.

Pietsch, T.W. 2009. Oceanic Anglerfishes: Extraordinary Diversity in the Deep Sea. University of California
Press.

Pietsch, T.W. In press. Gigantactinidae. In: K.E. Carpenter and N. De Angelis (eds), Living Marine
Resources of the Eastern Central Atlantic, Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome.

Citation
Knudsen, S. 2015. Rhynchactis macrothrix. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015:
e.T60483177A60788228. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T60483177A60788228.en

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External Resources
For Images and External Links to Additional Information, please see the Red List website.

© The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Rhynchactis macrothrix – published in 2015. 5
http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T60483177A60788228.en
 Appendix

Habitats
(http://www.iucnredlist.org/technical-documents/classification-schemes)

Major
Habitat Season Suitability
Importance?

10. Marine Oceanic -> 10.2. Marine Oceanic - Mesopelagic (200-1000m) - Suitable -

10. Marine Oceanic -> 10.3. Marine Oceanic - Bathypelagic (1000-4000m) - Suitable -

Additional Data Fields

Distribution
Lower depth limit (m): 2000

Upper depth limit (m): 300

© The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Rhynchactis macrothrix – published in 2015. 6
http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T60483177A60788228.en
The IUCN Red List Partnership

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ is produced and managed by the IUCN Global Species
Programme, the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) and The IUCN Red List Partnership.

The IUCN Red List Partners are: BirdLife International; Botanic Gardens Conservation International;
Conservation International; Microsoft; NatureServe; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Sapienza University of
Rome; Texas A&M University; Wildscreen; and Zoological Society of London.

THE IUCN RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES™