Are There Atlantic Species of the Genus Trachinotus (Carangidae), T. falcatus and T. ovatus, in Asian Mariculture?

According to numerous scientific publications and commercial offers, two species of pompano, Trachinotus blochii and T. falcatus, are currently cultivated in the mariculture in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, particularly, in Vietnam. It is also believed that T. blochii and T. ovatus are grown in aquatic farms of mainland China. Taxonomic identification by morphological characters of pompano species from a farm in the southern part of Central Vietnam and the results of the DNA barcoding showed that one of these species is indeed T. blochii, while the second one is not T. falcatus, but T. anak. Analysis of the literature data did not reveal any confirmed evidence of either introduction or presence of T. falcatus and T. ovatus in Asian waters. Moreover, the comparison of the generated nucleotide sequences with the sequences from genetic databases (GenBank and BOLD), allowed us to conclude that these species are unlikely to be present in mariculture, and all the mentions of them in numerous scientific publications from this region are the result of misidentification of T. anak.