The pelagic armorhead, pelagic armourhead, Richardson's boarfish, or southern boarfish, Pseudopentaceros richardsoni, is an armorhead

Armorhead

The Armorheads are a small family, Pentacerotidae, of fishes in the order Perciformes. They are native to the Indian Ocean, western and central Pacific, and southwestern Atlantic...

 of the genus Pseudopentaceros, found in the north and south Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, and the South Island

South Island

The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

 of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, from the surface to depths of 300 metres on the continental shelf

Continental shelf

The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain. Much of the shelf was exposed during glacial periods, but is now submerged under relatively shallow seas and gulfs, and was similarly submerged during other interglacial periods. The continental margin,...

. Its length is between 30 and 50 cm.

As food

Because its spawning grounds were confined to a few seamount

Seamount

A seamount is a mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach to the water's surface , and thus is not an island. These are typically formed from extinct volcanoes, that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from a seafloor of depth. They are defined by oceanographers as...

s in the central North Pacific, the pelagic armorhead was easily overfished. Soviet and Japanese trawlers took approximately 900,000 tons beginning in 1969; by 1984, the pelagic armorhead had been fished to commercial extinction. It has never been widely eaten in Europe or the United States.