The largehead hairtail (locally know as "corbata") is globally distributed in tropical and temperate waters except for the central Pacific; the eastern Atlantic population reported as this species is probably an undescribed species though. It is very common and locally abundant throughout its range (Collete et al. 2015). The stock structure of Trichiuris lepturus in the Eastern Pacific is not known. The species is assessed as a single stock in Ecuadorian continental waters, therefore an assessment unit top node is assigned with a management unit for Ecuador, where in the last years represented one of the main species of the fishery for small pelagics being mostly used for reduction purposes (González et al. 2008).