Historically, ragfish have been collected sporadically from the Pacific Ocean continental shelf of North America beginning off southern California, extending northward to the Gulf of Alaska, along the Aleutian Islands, and then south to eastern central Japan.
Early ragfish descriptions and taxonomy were unaware of the changes in morphology from juvenile to adult stage.
Not surprisingly, Lockington (1880), in his initial description of the species, named juveniles as "spotted ragfish," Icosteus aenigmaticus, while Bean (1887) called the first adult he described the "brown" ragfish, Acrotus willoughbyi.
Following a hiatus in general scientific work associated with World War II, Fitch (1953) used "ragfish" in reporting on both juveniles and adults, as did Wilimovsky (1954).
For the ragfish an exception may have been whalers apparently using their own unique common name (Cowan, 1938:97): "Dr.
Gross external morphology and coloration differences between adult ragfish (Fig.
There also has been difficulty in assignment of the family to higher taxa due to a continued puzzlement over ragfish evolutionary history.
The most appealing historical photograph of an adult ragfish is that of the Yecny family arranged beside a suspended 152 cm (5 ft) specimen caught while sport fishing on 20 May 1940 from a breakwater at Monterey Bay, Calif.
Prior to August 1999, I had assembled over 200 unpublished and published historical records on ragfish, with some historical records added in December 1999 and February 2000.
Historically, ragfish have come to science through fishermen and citizens who retain specimens and voluntarily deliver them to fisheries management personnel, museum curators, and ichthyologists.
In 1998 and 1999 state and Federal fisheries biologists in Juneau and Petersburg, Alaska, forwarded 16 more ragfish records.