Distribution and Habitat
Due to confusion with the common thresher, the distribution of the pelagic thresher may be wider than is currently known. It ranges extensively in the Indo-Pacific, with scattered records from South Africa, the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea (off Somalia, between Oman and India, and off Pakistan), to China, southeastern Japan, northwestern Australia, New Caledonia, and Tahiti, to the Hawaiian Islands, the Gulf of California, and the Galapagos Islands. The North Pacific population shifts northward during warm El Nino years. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA has shown that there is extensive gene flow within the eastern and western Pacific pelagic thresher populations, but little flow between them.
The pelagic thresher primarily inhabits the open ocean, occurring from the surface to a depth of at least 150 m (492 ft). However, it occasionally comes close to shore in regions with a narrow continental shelf, and has been observed near coral reef dropoffs or seamounts in the Red Sea and the Sea of Cortez, and off Indonesia and Micronesia. It has also been known to enter large lagoons in the Tuamotu Islands.
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