waters of the northwestern Mediterranean, south of the French border including the
waters of Cataluña and Levante (the “Balearic Sea”). Both regional seas (Balearic
and Alboran) were the first two great areas identified in the Spanish Mediterranean
with well-defined characteristics from the hydrographic and biological point of view
(Estrada et al. 1989). Other authors gave more weight to the biogeographical criteria
(Bianchi and Morri 2000; Würtz 2010) and found stronger relationships between the
Alboran Sea and the eastern Mediterranean (Aegean Sea) in relation to the “ocean
triads” hypothesis (Agostini and Bakun 2002).
For all these reasons, the opinion of a Spanish oceanographer of the last century is
still useful and is applicable to fishery resources:
Since the sea, as soon as we drift a few miles offshore, is no longer the heritage of any
country and the phenomena that take place there are generally influenced by factors that act
over a large surface of the globe, it is absolutely necessary that all countries cooperate in their
study by agreeing on common work plans and unifying the methods that must be used (Buen
1931).
23.2 Extraordinary Animals
For centuries, the inhabitants of the area knew about the presence of the Atlantic
surface current in the Strait of Gibraltar and the entry of pelagic fishes into the
Alboran Sea. These included commercially important fish, as well as lone individuals considered strangers and/or monsters or prodigious due to their large size.
The first records of their presence are from the end of the sixteenth century. A
fantastic “tattooed tuna” with drawings on its body was found off the coast of Ceuta
in May 1565 and reproduced by the ichthyologist C. Gesner (1670) (Fig. 23.1a).
Evidence of the Atlantic current dates back to 1574 when a sperm whale (Physeter
macrocephalus) was cannoned in the Strait, floated adrift and was stranded on a
beach in Valencia (Graells 1889).
In the eighteenth century, additional news mentioned another stranded sperm
whale in Ceuta (Fig. 23.1b) and a porcupinefish genus Diodon (D. hystrix or
D. eydouxii) presumably caught alive in Tarifa in 1777 (Fig. 23.1d). In the following
century, another Diodontidae was described on the beach of Tangier, south of the
Strait of Gibraltar (Amor 1859). That Diodontidae family, widely distributed in
tropical and temperate marine waters (Leis 2006), was cited by Spanish authors in
the nineteenth century in Andalusia and Galicia and by Buen (1926) in the Gulf of
Cadiz. A specimen of Diodon eydouxii, abundant in the eastern Pacific Ocean, was
caught in 1975 west of Tarifa (Zahara de los Atunes) and described by Crespo et al.
(1987) together with the tropical African species Acanthurus monroviae fished in
Marbella in 1981.
Among the Tetraodontidae (“pufferfishes”), Ephippion guttifer, a species from
Atlantic Africa and the Canary Islands, was caught in Malaga in 1871. A previously
caught specimen (Fig. 23.1e) is currently preserved in the museum of a secondary
23 A Historical Approach to Living Resources on the Spanish Coasts from the. . .
777
waters of Cataluña and Levante (the “Balearic Sea”). Both regional seas (Balearic
and Alboran) were the first two great areas identified in the Spanish Mediterranean
with well-defined characteristics from the hydrographic and biological point of view
(Estrada et al. 1989). Other authors gave more weight to the biogeographical criteria
(Bianchi and Morri 2000; Würtz 2010) and found stronger relationships between the
Alboran Sea and the eastern Mediterranean (Aegean Sea) in relation to the “ocean
triads” hypothesis (Agostini and Bakun 2002).
For all these reasons, the opinion of a Spanish oceanographer of the last century is
still useful and is applicable to fishery resources:
Since the sea, as soon as we drift a few miles offshore, is no longer the heritage of any
country and the phenomena that take place there are generally influenced by factors that act
over a large surface of the globe, it is absolutely necessary that all countries cooperate in their
study by agreeing on common work plans and unifying the methods that must be used (Buen
1931).
23.2 Extraordinary Animals
For centuries, the inhabitants of the area knew about the presence of the Atlantic
surface current in the Strait of Gibraltar and the entry of pelagic fishes into the
Alboran Sea. These included commercially important fish, as well as lone individuals considered strangers and/or monsters or prodigious due to their large size.
The first records of their presence are from the end of the sixteenth century. A
fantastic “tattooed tuna” with drawings on its body was found off the coast of Ceuta
in May 1565 and reproduced by the ichthyologist C. Gesner (1670) (Fig. 23.1a).
Evidence of the Atlantic current dates back to 1574 when a sperm whale (Physeter
macrocephalus) was cannoned in the Strait, floated adrift and was stranded on a
beach in Valencia (Graells 1889).
In the eighteenth century, additional news mentioned another stranded sperm
whale in Ceuta (Fig. 23.1b) and a porcupinefish genus Diodon (D. hystrix or
D. eydouxii) presumably caught alive in Tarifa in 1777 (Fig. 23.1d). In the following
century, another Diodontidae was described on the beach of Tangier, south of the
Strait of Gibraltar (Amor 1859). That Diodontidae family, widely distributed in
tropical and temperate marine waters (Leis 2006), was cited by Spanish authors in
the nineteenth century in Andalusia and Galicia and by Buen (1926) in the Gulf of
Cadiz. A specimen of Diodon eydouxii, abundant in the eastern Pacific Ocean, was
caught in 1975 west of Tarifa (Zahara de los Atunes) and described by Crespo et al.
(1987) together with the tropical African species Acanthurus monroviae fished in
Marbella in 1981.
Among the Tetraodontidae (“pufferfishes”), Ephippion guttifer, a species from
Atlantic Africa and the Canary Islands, was caught in Malaga in 1871. A previously
caught specimen (Fig. 23.1e) is currently preserved in the museum of a secondary
23 A Historical Approach to Living Resources on the Spanish Coasts from the. . .
777