AFORO news

[05/13/2023] AFORO has reached 8,000 digitized images: Thanks to the help of Philippe Béarez and Nicolas Bailly, the digitization process of the J. Rivaton and P. Bourret book "Les otolithes des poissons de l'Indo-Pacifique", which contains an enormous amount of images from Pacific, has been in progress. Also, new specimens of Atlantic mesopelagic species from SUMMER oceanographic cruise donated by M Pilar Olivar and Ainoha Berrnal was included in AFORO database.

[04/14/2023] specimens obtained in DEMERSALES campaign increase the list of NorthWestern Atlantic species: We thanks the DEMERSALES team from IEO-CSIC to help us to improve the AFORO representation of the NorthWestern Atlantic species from Galician waters, including new 29 species with 129 specimens.

[02/15/2023] 7th IOS symposium in Chile. 2023, The otolith's year.: The 7th IOS symposium, which will be held from 9 to 13 October, 2023, in Viña del Mar Chile. In the website (https://www.ios2023.cl/) you can find information about keynote speakers, themes, and workshops of the 7th IOS. The registration and abstract submission platform along with further information will be released by January 2023.

[06/03/2022] OSTEOBASE and AFORO connected too!: Currently, you can access AFORO from the OSTEOBASE species pages (website that shows details of the vertebrae and skulls of osteichthyos fish).

[05/31/2022] FISHBASE and AFORO connected!: Thanks Nicolas Bailly, AFORO and FISHBASE are definitely connected. Currently, it can be accessed directly through the species files of both databases. AFORO species page are linked to their corresponding FISHBASE page and viceversa, so that AFORO is already accessible from FISHBASE through their species page (internet sources).

[09/02/2021] Osteobase: new Link in AFORO: A new link has been added. Osteobase is created by Philippe Béarez's team at the MNHN in Paris. This website shows the skeletal and cranial structures of teleost fish in great detail

[04/15/2021] New Family in AFORO: Thanks Albert Calbet , AFORO added a new Family in the collection, the Serrasalmidae.

[03/01/2021] New Signathidae otoliths are welcomed to AFORO: The small size sagittae of 9 European short snouted seahorse (Hippocampus hippocampus) and 6 Greater pipefish (Sygnathus acus) has been uploaded in AFORO

[01/11/2021] A great start this 2021: Otoliths from Caspian Sea and North America: Thanks Aneesh Bose, AFORO added new species of gobiids and batrachoids from Caspian Sea, Lake Ontario and British Columbia.

[10/22/2020] Otoliths from Oman Sea: Sagitta Images that were originally intended for the elaboration of an Atlas of otoliths of the Oman Sea elaborated by Shama Zaki from Oman has been recovered. Unfortunatelly, the project was never carried out, leaving some excellent quality photographs that are now uploaded in AFORO

[10/20/2020] Cichlids from Lake Tanganika: Thanks Aneesh Bose from Max Plank Institute, four species of cichlids from Lake Tanganika are added toAFORO database.

[07/10/2020] With Lophiiformes from Indian waters, AFORO reach to 7000 specimens: Thanks M Rajeeshkumar and KV Aneesh Kumar, we uploaded 5 new species of Lophifiiformes from Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal (India)

[05/02/2019] More than 2000 species around the world: AFORO team keeps uploading the huge image collection from Otolith Atlas of Taiwan Fishes (Lin and Chan, 2012) and finally We reach to include in the website, otoliths from more than 2000 species of fishes.

[03/13/2019] More than 6000 images in AFORO: Thanks Audrey Geffen, Carolina Siliprandi and Balbina Molí, AFORO database increases the otolith representation from species of North Sea, Brazil and Namibia and reach to 6000 images

[11/22/2018] Otoliths from Argentina: Thanks Alejandra V. Volpedo and her colleagues from Argentina, AFORO incorporated images of Sea and fresh-waters otoliths species previously published in: (A.V. Volpedo, G.A. Thompson y E. Avigliano, 2017, Atlas de otolitos de peces de Argentina)

[06/07/2018] The book of abstracts of the all 6 IOS are uploaded: Now, all 6 International Otolith Symposium books of abstracts can be downloaded from the AFORO website.

[05/04/2018] Geographical filter in the identification system: A geographical filter in the identification system was included. Based on the metadata information, the set of data used to identify otoliths can be reduced only to the specimens of a big geographical areas as Oceans Atlantic, Antarctic, Arctic, Indic and Pacific, the Mediterranean, Black and Baltic Seas and Continental freshwaters (America, Africa, Asia or Europe).

[04/11/2018] 6th Internationational Otolith Symposium in Taiwan. : Next week (15-21/04/20018) start the 6th Internationational Otolith Symposiumin in the National Museum of Marine Science & Technology (NMMST), Taiwan. Quarter century has passed since the 1st International Symposium on Fish Otolith Research and Application held at Hilton Head, USA in 1993. The symposium started to bring up a platform for people who work on fish otolith at varied objective to discuss and share experiences, and the series of international otolith symposium (IOS) was followed by 2nd IOS1998 in Bergen (Norway), 3rd IOS2004 in Townsville (Australia), 4th IOS2009 in Monterey (USA) and 5th IOS2014 in Mallorca (Spain). For the first time ever, the 6th IOS2018 will be held in Asia, a rather different atmosphere and culture for experiencing and a nice chance to review the advances of otolith research in the past 1/4 century. Also, the aim of the symposium is not only focus on fish otolith, but for the exploration of the information encoded in all types of calcified tissues (otoliths, scales, bones, shells, corals, etc.) as tools to support sustainable management and use.

[11/02/2017] Taxonomic changes in AFORO based in Nelson et al. 2016: AFORO follows the recent taxonomic order used by Nelson et al. 2016. If well at family level the change are not dramatic, some families are split in three as Macrouridae, (now Macrouridae, Trachyrincidae and Bathygadidae) and other families are merged into other as is the case of Phycidae included into Gadidae.

[10/05/2017] A mapa mundi with otolith locations was included: This map is interactive and permit to acces to otolith information in each location.

[05/03/2017] otoliths of Lessepsian invader species: Thanks Dr. Michel Bariche of the American University of Beirut, we added otoliths belonging to four Lessepsian invader species from Lebanon.

[11/09/2016] Otoliths of North Sea: Thanks M.F Leopold and colleagues, AFORO incorporated images of North Sea otoliths previously published in the Interactive guide of identification of fish from the SE North Sea, Wadden Sea and adjacent fresh waters by means of otoliths and other hard parts (2001).

[10/10/2016] relationship otolith length vs fish length (OL-FL): Based in the paper of J. Gimenez et al 2016 "Relationships between otolith and fish size from Mediterranean and northeastern Atlantic species to be used in predator-prey studies" in Journal Fish Biology, AFORO team provides potential equations between fish length and otolith size for fishes of different areas Since most of the regressions (ca. 84%) presented a high percentage of explained deviance (>75%), our data will be useful for dietary studies on piscivorous predators. You can access to the dinamic table clicking in the OF-FL function in home page.

[03/15/2016] AFORO reaches to 5000 images: Thanks the recent uploads from specimens and pictures given by Szymon Smolinski from Poland, Andy Padilla from Alaska, E. Vasilyeva from Russia and C.H. Lin and C.W. Chang from Taiwan, AFORO reaches up to 5000 images of otolith sagittae, bellowing to 1519 species.

[02/19/2015] 300 Mediterranean species: Despite the low diversity of the Mediterranean Sea fishes, AFORO reach to represent 300 species.

[12/12/2014] wavelets are here: Now, you can calculate wavelets from otolith outline in polar coordinates. You can upload images in the AFORO system and download numerical results. Wavelet transform representation allows quantifying the irregularities of the contour and determining its precise position. These properties make these techniques suitable for pattern recognition purposes as stocks or species recognition (Parisi-Baradad et al 2010). These routines were developed in MATLAB® language.

[07/07/2014] All otolith morphometries restarted and uploaded: The otolith sagitta morfometries of the all specimens were included now in AFORO. More of 4,500 images were represented by five morphological parameters: fish length (TL, SL, FL, etc.); area (Oa); perimeter (Op); length (Ol); width or heigth (Ow)of the otoliths and 3 indices; aspect ratio (OW/Ol); otolith relative length(100X(Ol/TL)); Otolith relative size(1000X(Oa/TL2))

[10/17/2013] 5th International Otolith Symposium 2014 (IOS2014): Symposum will be in 20-24 Mallorca, Balearic Islands in October 2014. Strategic objective: The aim of the symposium is the exploration of the use of calcified tissues as tools to support management and the formulation of a definition of indicators at environmental, community, population, and individual levels. Scope: Implementation of ecosystem-based approaches to marine management points to several shared objectives between conservation and fishery management that require better knowledge of the life history of the exploited resources, elucidation of the information encoded in the calcified tissues (otoliths, scales, bones, shells, and corals) of marine and freshwater organisms, and support for knowledge-based, sustainable ocean management and use.

[09/26/2013] Download morphometry software: This software calculates morphometry of an otolith given an image of this one. The output it is a file that contains the area, perimeter, length, width and aspect ratio of the otolith. This software is currently only available for Windows operating systems. Download software README

[06/04/2013] new specimens and colaborators: We thanks Marin Miletic and Marcelo Kovacic from Croatia and Rebecca Fox from Australia for give us a lot of otolith from Gobiidae and Siganidae respectivally. Recently the ir images were uploaded in the AFORO system.

[02/14/2013] more than 4000 images : Thanks Dr. Fabien Morat from the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography of the Aix-Marseille University and their collegues, We added more species from Mediterranean and French Polynesia and the collection reach to 4000 otolith images.

[01/15/2013] Now, AFORO shows 3D images: Since 2002, AFORO has been developed image analysis systems and database framework to give solutions in automatic identification of fish species and populations in base to otolith contours. The main objective of the project AFORO3D (CSIC, UPC, UVic and UB) is to create three dimensional (3D) morphological descriptors targeted to whole otolith and analisys tools in order to classify. The 3D objects are acquired at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC) using a single-camera 3D Scanner system based in projected LED light and developed by the Universitat de Girona (VICOROB) and AQSENSE company. The AFORO site and database are modified to support 3D information.

[01/14/2013] Otolith Atlas from the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea Fishes: Few days ago a new otolith Atlas was published. Sadighzadeh, Z., Tuset, V.M., Dadpour, M.R., Otero-Ferrer, J.L., Lombarte, A. 2012. Otolith Atlas from the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea Fishes. The Atlas include, at first time, more than 100 species of this high biodiversity area. Some species are uploaded in AFORO. If you are ineterested, contact with Dr. Sadighzadeh. zahrasadighzadeh@yahoo.com

[01/10/2013] BORS, a new enterprise : Nuria Raventos has been developed a new enterprise, Barcelona Otolith Reading Services. BORS is a specialised end-to-end solution for otolith-based questions applied to fish biology and marine ecology, removing the often rate-limiting task of procesing and analysing the miscrostructure of fish otoliths

[01/07/2013] Happy new year : I wish a happy and ventorous new year to our collegues and visitors. Remember, only rest one year to next international otolith symposium in Mallorca (October 2014)

[07/12/2012] New Leespsian species from Liban: Thanks Dr. Michel Bariche from Liban, Aforo database has been uploaded 15 new species of Lessepsian invaders

[05/10/2012] 5th International Otolith Symposium in Mallorca 2014: International Otolith Ssymposium 2014 will be the fifth in a series of independent symposia convened since 1993, to encourage the exchange of information and expertise, and promote the development of new techniques and applications for otolith-based analysis in ecology, management, and conservation. This international forum is the centre for the exchange of information on developments in the field. New techniques of analysis, statistical treatment, and indeed new areas of application are all presented in this forum. Two workshops will take place on Wednesday, one of them will be a Workshop on Otolith Shape Analysis.

[12/02/2011] Otoliths from American deep sea fishes: Recently and thanks Mrs. Olga Aiza we included otoliths from deep sea areas of Caribean Sea (Belize), American Pacific (Peru and Ecuador) and Atlantic Oceans (Argentina)

[06/02/2011] and more than 1000 species: Since 1993 the AFORO collection has grown continually arriving to exceed 1000 species. Thanks to all the people that kindly contributed to build this database.

[03/14/2011] more than 200 families!: With the upload of numerous mesopelagic species from Central Atlantic, We reach to 2 hundred familes of Teleosteans showed in AFORO web

[11/11/2010] New images from the Photographic Atlas of Fish Otoliths of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean: Thanks the permission of Steve Campana we added scanner images from the Photographic Atlas of Fish Otoliths of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. 2004. NRC Research Press. These images show specimens from 22 families no included previously in AFORO database

[11/04/2010] new families added in AFORO database: Thanks Olga Aiza and Victor Tuset we added 11 families of Deep Sea areas (Neoscopelidae, Ogcocephalidae, Chaunacidae, Atelopodidae, Anoplogastridae, Dirtmidae, Congiopodidae, Notsudidae,Oreosomatidae, Scombrolabracidae, Achiropserttidae). Thanks Ernesto Azzurro we included also 5 families of Lessepsian species from Eastern Mediterranean (Plotosidae, Fistulariidae, Siganidae, Pempheridae, Terapontidae)

[10/08/2010] Use of otoliths in cryptospecies identification: Thanks Victor Tuset, we added otolith images from two conflictive cryptospecies, Aphanopus carbo and A. intermedius from Macaronesian islands, such can help researches to identify correctly both species. These images were published in Tuset et al. 2010, Scientia Marina 74: 807-814

[09/01/2010] AFORO reach to 3000 images : Thanks Ernesto Azzurro we added new species from Suez Channel and the database AFORO has been reached to 3000 uploaded images

[05/05/2010] First otoliths from Oman Sea (Iran): Thanks Zahra Sadighzadeh from Tabriz (Iran) we can upload our first specimens of two Lutjanus species from the Oman Sea

[02/23/2010] 21 species of Californian Sebastes: Thanks Dr Ralph Imondi from the Coastal Marine Biolabs of Ventura, (California), we can upload 140 images of otoliths bellowing to 21 species of California Sebastes. We also thanks Dr. Linda Santschi and their enthusiastic students.

[11/24/2009] otoliths of Myctophidae uploaded: Thanks Dirk Nolf, who provided us otoliths from 21 species of Myctophidae (mainly from New Caledonia), this family increase a lot in our database. Also, We thank Ainhoa Bernal to help us in the digitalization of their images.

[10/16/2009] IOS 2009 abstracts PDF uploaded in AFORO: We included a entree with the pdf of the abstracts of the International Otolith Symposium.

[10/13/2009] GBIF project: Now, It is possible to access to AFORO database from GBIF (Global Biodiversty Information Facilty)at this address http://www.gbif.es/ic_colecciones.php?ID_Coleccion=9895

[07/30/2009] AFORO reach to 2500 images: Thanks a lot of collaborators AFORO database reach to 2500 digitalized images of otoliths bellowing to near 800 species.

[04/28/2009] new Atlantic and Mediterranean species: Thanks Nuria Ortega and Àlex Casas 3 new species from Galicia (NE Atlantic Ocean) and 3 new from Catalonia (NW Mediterranean Sea)belowing to Gadidae, Phycidae, Labridae, Gobiidae and Callyonimidae were uploaded

[03/24/2009] New species from Cabo Verde, California and Gulf of Mexico: Thanks Víctor Tuset, Dirk Nolf, Ralph Imondi, Halie Arimitsu, Dana Bethea and Ivy Baremore, more than 50 species, from California, Australia, Cabo Verde and North of Gulf of Mexico, were uploaded to AFORO database.

[03/23/2009] Restarted functions: The new internal structure of AFORO was finished. Also, the links page and the e-mail results of the otolith classification system were restarted.

[03/06/2009] e-mail results and upload new images: Yesterday, the AFORO database has been connected to The GHBIF data network. So we restarted to upload new images and species and to restablish all the web services(as e-mail results) very soon.

[01/23/2009] Changes in the comments section: Last two month the structure of the database associated to AFORO has been modified in order to be compatible with GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) systems.

[11/07/2008] 7 new families are uploaded in AFORO: Thanks Dr. Dirk Nolf and Sra. Coral Hispano we added to the AFORO collection otoliths from 7 families: Acipenseridae, Osmeridae, Microstomatidae, Atherinopsidae, Apogonidae, Cheilodactylidae and Embiotocidae

[07/17/2008] Now, you can get the OTOLITH ATLAS for the western Mediterranean, north and centre east Atlantic : Is a pleasure for me announce that our ATLAS is published as Special Volume of Scentia Marina, 72 suplement 1 (2008) by V.M. Tuset, A. Lombarte and C.A. Assis. A PDF version can get it in Scentia Marina web (http://www.icm.csic.es/scimar/). Thanks Dr. Víctor Tuset and Dr. Carlos assis, at least one otolith image of each species can get also in the AFORO Database.

[06/13/2008] New specimens of Mediterranean soleids, cynoglossids, myctophids and lophiids : The Families Myctophidae, Lophiidae, Soleidae and Cynoglossidae was updated with new specimens from Western Mediterranean waters

[05/08/2008] OTOLITH ATLAS FOR THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN, NORTH AND CENTRAL EASTERN ATLANTIC by V.M, Tuset, A. Lombarte and C.A. Assis: The first otolith ATLAS of Mediterranean and Atlantic temperate waters will be published in July as a monographic volume of Scientia Marina Journal.

[04/01/2008] More of 2000 sagitta images!!!: With the new updated mediterranean triglids AFORO reach to 2004 images from 591 species. Thank you to evereybody to help us in this project.

[03/17/2008] Pogonophryne albipinna uploaded: Thanks Mr. Víctor Carretero, a new specie from Ross Sea (Pogonophryne albipinna) was uploaded

[03/14/2008] Classification system has been completly restored: After inner changes in the AFORO structure, all functions have been restored.

[03/12/2008] new tropical species: Thanks Coral Hispano, we added new species from tropical Chaetodontidae, Pomacanthidae, Acanthidae and Pomacentridae

[01/15/2008] 71 species from Gulf of California: 71 species belowing 28 families and 12 orders were collected by Dr. Hugo Aguirre, Dr. Felipe Amezcua and Dr. Juan Madrid from Mazatlán (México) and uploaded to AFORO.

[12/13/2007] Otoliths from Bering Sea: Thanks Anabel Colmenero 17 species from Bering Sea were added. These species belowing at Clupeidae, Salmonidae, Gadidae, Agonidae, Cottidae, Hexagrammidae, Psychrolutidae, Scorpaenidae and Pleuronectidae.

[10/11/2007] AGE&SHAPE, a new comercial software applied to otolith studies: AGE&SHAPE is a comercial software developed by INFAIMON SL and based in the otolith research of UPC, IMEDEA and CMIMA teams and cofinanced by Spamish Goverment (PTR1995-0810-OP). AGE&SHAPE is composed, as suggested by its name, by two separated parts: age and shape. “Age” is devoted to determining the animal growth/time relation, with the aim of identifying, counting and measuring the growth rings, and “Shape” is in charge of determining the otoliths’ shape (or any other object) based on the relation between the external contour and its nucleus. SHAPE subprogram computes Cartesian and a polar outline representation. Contour analysis is done by computing its Fourier (FFT) or wavelet transform (DWT).

[09/26/2007] 7 species of genus Aphanius: Thanks Dr. Bettina Reichenbacher we uploaded 7 species of genus Aphanius published in B.Reichenbacher, U.Sienknecht, H. Küchemhoff, N. Fenske, 2007, J Morphology 268, 898-915. This species are from Iberian Peninsula, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicilia, Turkey, Jordan, Irak, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

[09/21/2007] More of 500 species!!!: With the recent incorporation of five species of Mullidae ( from genus Mulloidichthys, Pseudupeneus, Parupeneus and Upeneus)and 1 new family (Characidae) the database AFORO reach to 505 species. Thank you very much to all AFORO contributors.

[08/08/2007] New Caledonian otoliths: 10 species of Lethrinidae and 13 of Lutjanidae from New Caledonia are recently uploaded.

[07/10/2007] 10 new Pacific haemulids: Thanks Dr. H. Aguirre and Dr. D. Nolf, AFORO increase their Haemulidae in 10 species of the genus Conodon , Diagramma, Haemulon, Haemulopsis, Orthopristis and Pomadasys. These species come from Gulf Of California (Mazatlán, México) and New Caledonia.

[06/25/2007] Gerreidae from gulf of California: Thanks Dr. Hugo Aguirre (Mazatlán, México) we included 6 species of the family Gerreidae (mojarras) fron the waters of the gulf of California

[05/07/2007] otolith morphometries: Thanks Sara Cernadas, near to 300 otolith have been measured (area, perimeter, length, width and circularity) and updated in the AFORO web.

[03/19/2007] Caelorinchus from Namibia: 5 species of the genus Caelorinchus from Namibia waters (C.acanthiger, C. braueri, C. fasciatus, C. matamua and C. polli) have been uploaded in the AFORO database.

[02/15/2007] AFORO reach to 130 families of Teleostean fishes represented by 370 species: Recent uploaded families are: Muraenidae, Gobiosocidae, Salmonidae, Polymixiidae, Pleuronectidae, Anguillidae, Ephippidae, Holocentridae Bathymasteridae, Centropomidae, Emmelichthyidae,Grammicolepididae and Macroramphosidae

[01/19/2007] 7 new families from Indic Ocean: Thanks Mr. Jorge Torrens, 7 species from Indic Ocean included in the families Chirocentridae,Scaridae, Exocetidae, Sillaginidae, Leiognathidae, Psettodidae and Paralichthydae are uploaed in the web AFORO.

[01/14/2007] THE NEW AFORO IS HERE: In the new AFORO web, we have been build an expert system that will allow to carry AUTOMATIC CLASSIFICATION in basis the otolith outline analysis (Waveletes). Also we keep implemented a public web site and a database of otoliths with its corresponding shape analysis and classification system . You may access to it at the following address: http://www.cmima.csic.es/aforo/ or http://aforo.cmima.csic.es/ We have developed several techniques based on Fast Fourier Transform, Wavelets and CSS (curvature space scale) specifically focused on providing mathematical descriptors of the otolith shape, through its contours, and extracted from high resolution images of otoliths. The database at present contains more of 1200 high resolution otolith images corresponding to more than 320 species from 97 families, mainly from Western mediterranean, Weddel Sea. You may find the shape analysis of each sample and compare among related samples. We have been aware of your guide of otholith through the internet and it should be very interesting for us trying to make some kind of cooperation. In particular we are obviously very interested on including more and more species from everywhere and your collection and the images seems to us very suitable. We invite you to visit our web pages and see the kind of information we offer through the database. If you find that this should be of interest to you we can keep in contact and try to find a way for mutual cooperation.

[10/30/2006] Four new families of Scorpaeniformes: Thanks Anabel Colmenero, The AFOROweb has been increased with four families of Scorpaeniformes (Agonidae, Cottidae, Psychrolutidae and Hexagrammidae)from the Bearing Sea (Alaska)

[10/10/2006] 100 familes: Aforo web reach to 100 families. Thanks Dr. Corrado Costa and Dr. Bettina Reichenbacher, Aforo can added two new familes of the Order Cyprinodontiformes and reach to 100 families of Teleostan fishes represented by their sagitta otoliths.

[03/20/2006] Otoliths from Gulf of Mexico: Thanks Dana Bethea and Ivy Baremore from the NOAA lab of Panama City (Florida , USA) the AFORO web reach to 326 species and 97 families of Teleostan fishes. We added images from otoliths of 39 species of Gulf of Mexico, including specimens from 5 new families: Batrachoididae, Hemiramphidae, Elopidae Lobotidae and Pomatomidae. If you are interested in more images of otoliths of Gulf of Mexico you can visit the internet otolith guide of the Panama City lab.

[01/31/2006] 9 new species: Since last november we added 9 new species from Atlantic waters. Specially thanks to Dr. Dirk Nolf for give us otoliths from North Sea

[10/25/2005] seven species of Merluccius are up-loaded: The five East-Atlantic species of the genus Merluccius, and two South-American species (M.hubbsi and M.gayi peruanus) are up-loaded in the AFORO web

[09/27/2005] otoliths from 89 families of Teleostean fishes : At present, the AFORO web included otoliths from 89 families of Teleostean fishes. Recently, We up-loaded otoliths from Tropical areas, mainly New Caledonian, donned by Dr. Dirk Wolf. The 8 most recent fish families included in AFORO are Nemipteridae, Malacanthidae, Lutjanidae, Gerreidae, Lethrinidae, Helostomatidae, Pomacanthidae and Balistidae

[09/20/2005] Otoliths from Antarctic and subantarctic fishes: We have been finished the digitization and up-loaded process of the Antarctic otolith collection (256 specimens of 54 species). We specially thank Dr. Wolf Arntz (AWI) and Dr. Beatriz Morales-Nin (IMEDEA-CSIC) by help us in the specimens collection.

[09/19/2005] Channichthydae are completed: 13 species of Antarctic and subantarctic Channichthydae proceding from EASIZ cruises has been up-loaded. We thanks our students, Iosune Olabarrieta and Clara Coll to help us in the digitazing and measuring process.

[09/09/2005] Artedidraconidae from Antarctic waters: 46 otoliths from 11 species of the antarctic artedidraconids were up-loaded. In our web a first time described otolith from Pogonophryne macropogon was included. Channichthydae otoliths will be up-loaded soon.

[07/22/2005] more Mediterranean species: Today, four new Mediterranean species were up-loaded. Gymnammodytes cicerelus, Ctenolabrus rupestris, Parablennius gatorugine and Gobius strictus.

[03/11/2005] Bathydraconidae and more than 1000 otolith images : We up-loaded 7 species of Bathydraconidae from the Weddell Sea (Antarctic). With these new 23 otoliths the AFORO database reach over 1000 images.

[01/20/2005] otoliths from Mediterranean species: Otoliths images from 187 Mediterranean species have been up-loaded. database. All the best for 2005

[12/22/2004] otoliths, colour and sound: A. Cruz and A. Lombarte. 2004. Otolith size and its relationship with colour patterns and sound production has been published in Journal of Fish Biology (2004) 65, 1512-1525.

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