IMIS

A dataset on the distributions of shallow-water shore fishes known from the Tropical Eastern Pacific biogeographic region. The Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP) encompasses the continental shoreline that extends south of Magdalena Bay (~ 25 degrees N) along the outer coast of southern Baja California, throughout the Gulf of California, and down the continental coastline to about Cabo Blanco (4 degrees S) in northern Peru. This region also includes five offshore islands and groups of islands - the Revillagigedos, Clipperton, Cocos, Malpelo and the Galapagos. Politically the region spans all or part of the Pacific coasts of 10 Central and South American countries: (most of) Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, a small part of Honduras in the upper reaches of the Gulf of Fonseca, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and northern Peru, as well as a tiny piece of French Polynesia in the form of Clipperton Island. The northern and southern continental limits of this region are defined by cold currents that flow from the poles along the continental coasts towards the equator and then move away from the coast towards the central Pacific at about these points. The northern quarter of the Gulf of California also included as part of this tropical region even though it has a more subtropical to temperate environment and a fish fauna with significant affinities to the fauna of the temperate Californian Province.