The Inshore Fish Fauna of Johnston Island, a Central Pacific AtolP

THIS PAPER is primarily concerned with Central Pacific zoogeography. Its main purpose is to trace in so far as possible the derivation and the immigration and emigration routes of the Johnston Island inshore fish fauna. The importance of Johnston for a study of this sort . lies in its position between the areas inhabited by the great tropical Pacific fauna to the south and the strongly endemic Hawaiian fauna to the north (Fig. 1). The first section of this paper records the fishes known from Johnston and presents the taxonomic interpretations upon which the zoogeographic treatment of the second section is based. Of the collections dealt with, the most important for this paper are those taken by V. E. Brock, Y. Yamaguchi, and the author at Johnston in February 1951. These collections were made possible through the kindness of Colonel Cronau, then commanding officer of the island, and were greatly facilitated by Lt. Col. Eaton and other members of the airforce who were there at the time. In addition, three small collections from the same island were turned over to me by Brock, Schaefer, and Francis respectively. Finally, a reexamination of certain fishes from Johnston recorded by Fowler and Ball (1925) was made possible through the courtesy of the staff of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.