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Abstract
The shore fishes of St. Helena Island, South Atlantic Ocean (15°58′S 5°43′W), are reviewed. A checklist of 81 species of shore fish with notes on the ecology and geographical distribution of each species is presented. Sixteen of the species have not before been recorded at St. Helena and seven other species have previously been identified incorrectly. Two new species, Chromis sanctaehelenae Edwards (Pomacentridae) and Quisquilius ascensionis Dawson and Edwards (Gobiidae), are described and the pomacentrid Stegastes sanctaehelenae (Sauvage) is redescribed and a neotype designated. In addition, hitherto unreported records of the cephalochordate Epigonichthys lucayanus, and of an Eleotris species (Eleotrididae) found in a freshwater pool near the coast, are included. The ecology and zoogeography of the shore fishes is discussed.
34·2% of the shore fishes are widespread amphi-Atlantic warm-water species. 15·2% are western Atlantic species which have the central Atlantic islands as their eastern limit, whilst 13·9% are eastern Atlantic species which reach their western limit in the central Atlantic. 20·3% are essentially known only from Ascension and St. Helena (although two of these species have also reached St. Paul's Rocks and one is known also at the Azores). 13·9% are endemic to St. Helena and two species are known otherwise only in the Indo-West Pacific.
The shore-fish fauna has a predominantly central Atlantic character and cannot be considered as an integral part of the fish faunas of either the Western or the Eastern Atlantic Regions.
