On the occurrence of Scomberomorus commerson Lacepède, 1800 (Osteichthyes: Scombridae) off Northern Tunisia (Central Mediterranean) Jamila BEN SOUISSI 1 *, Daniel GOLANI 2 , Hamadi MEJRI 1 , Jeanne ZAOUALI 1 and Christian CAPAPÉ 3 (1) Département des Ressources animales, halieutiques et des Technologies Agroalimentaires, Institut national agronomique de Tunisie, 43 avenue Charles Nicolle, Cité Mahrajène, 1082 Tunis, Tunisie. *Email: bensouissi.jamila@inat.agrinet.tn (2) Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91904 Jerusalem, Israël. (3) Laboratoire d’Ichtyologie, case 104, Université Montpellier II, Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc, 34095 Montpellier cedex 05, France. Abstract: Scomberomorus commerson Lacepède, 1800 is recorded for the first time in Tunisian waters, off Kelibia, Cape Bon, in northern Tunisia, central Mediterranean. This finding constitutes the seventh Lessepsian migrant fish reported in the area. This record is probably due to migration from the eastern Mediterranean where populations were previously esta- blished. Résumé : Sur la présence de Scomberomorus commerson Lacepède, 1800 (Osteichthyes: Scombridae) au nord de la Tunisie (Méditerranée centrale). Scomberomorus commerson Lacepède, 1800 est signalé pour la première fois dans les eaux marines côtières septentrionales tunisiennes, à Kélibia (Cap Bon). Cette mention constitue la septième espèce de pois- son lessepsienne pêchée dans la zone. Ce signalement est probablement dû à une migration depuis la Méditerranée orien- tale où les populations de ce scombridé sont bien établies et acclimatées. Keywords: Scombridae; Scomberomorus commerson; Mediterranean Sea; Tunisia; First record; Lessepsian species Cah. Biol. Mar. (2006) 47 : 215-218 Introduction Scomberomorus commerson Lacepède, 1800 is widely known from the Red Sea, eastern Africa to Cape Town, Indian Ocean to Japan, western and eastern Australia and Fiji (Golani et al., 2002). It was recorded first in the Mediterranean off Palestine by Hornell (1935) as Scomberomorus sp. Then it extended its Mediterranean dis- tribution northward off Lebanon (George & Athanassiou, 1965), Turkey (Gucu et al., 1994) and Dodecanese Islands (Buham et al., 1997), and eastward off Egypt (El Sayed, 1994) and Libya (Ben-Abdallah, pers. com., 2004) (Fig. 1). Golani et al. (2002) noted that the species is very common and commercially exploited throughout its range. S. com- merson is not cited by Bradaï et al. (2004) among the ten scombrid species recorded off the coast of Tunisia. Reçu le 11 mai 2005 ; accepté après révision le 6 juin 2006. Received 11 May 2005; accepted in revised form 6 June 2006.