• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.136-140
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• 2023

A single opah specimen (705 mm SL) was collected from Samcheok, South Korea on November, 2014, and firstly reported as Lampris guttatus by Jeong et al. (2015). Thereafter Lampris lauta was revived and three additional species (Lampris australensis, Lampris incognitus, Lampris megalopsis) were newly reported (Underkoffler et al., 2018). Therefore, it needs to review the scientific name of the Korean opah. The first reported opah specimen from Korea is now preserved as stuffed specimen at the Seodaemun Museum of Natural History in Seoul. We re-investigated the morphological features of stuffed specimen. It was characterized by having the following morphological combinations; orbital diameter is greater than 5% of fork length, whole body including head with white irregular spots, all fins are deep red. In addition, L. guttatus is confined to North Atlantic Ocean, whereas L. megalopsis is distributed worldwide from temperate to tropical waters. Therefore, our comprehensive study suggests that the scientific name of opah (L. guttatus) reported in Korea must be changed to L. megalopsis based on morphological characteristics and distribution area.