from the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean in 2011. The sagittae of were classified into six types based on differences in the Otolith Posterior, Excisural Notch, Antirostrum, and Radiate Stripes. There was a significant difference (up to 36.4%) in the coefficients between two of the six types (<0.05: one-way ANOVA based on 77 coefficients derived from the elliptical Fourier). Our analysis combining quantitative and qualitative approaches indicated that: (1) it is feasible to classify the sagittae types based on morphological characters; (2) it is more accurate to describe the diversity of sagittae types and morphological characters using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches; (3)the elliptical Fourier analysis distinctly reflected the differences among the six sagittae types. The percentage of different sagittae types changed with the fish length and sagittae length, and there were about 20.2% fishes whose left sagittae and right sagittae were belong to different types. Type P. ramsayigradually changed into a fusiform shape There were always many sagittae types no matter in which body length groups, suggesting that the diversity of sagittae morphology is retained at every developmental stage of comprehensive evaluation of the variety of types and take into account the differences between the left and right sagittae.