Occurrence of longfin goatfish Upeneus supravittatus (Uiblein and Heemstra, 2010) along Chennai coast, south India

Gomathy, S and Vivekanandan, E and Sukumaran, Sandhya (2023) Occurrence of longfin goatfish Upeneus supravittatus (Uiblein and Heemstra, 2010) along Chennai coast, south India. Indian Journal of Fisheries, 70 (1). pp. 44-49. ISSN 0970 - 6011

Text Indian Journal of Fisheries_2023_Sandhya Sukumaran.pdf Download (626kB)

Abstract

Goatfishes (Family: Mullidae) are commercially important fishery resource along the Chennai coast, south-eastern India. Species-level identification of goatfishes is a challenge, particularly in the ‘vittatus’ group, as there is severe overlap of taxonomic characteristics. In 2010, Uiblein and Heemstra revised the Family Mullidae and reported the occurrence of Upeneus supravittatus along the Indian coast. They also remarked that U. supravittatus has been misidentified as U. taeniopterus in earlier reports from India. To resolve this and verify the occurrence of U. supravittatus, 15 morphometric characteristics and 13 meristic characteristics of goatfish samples collected at Chennai were analysed and compared with the corresponding data reported by Uiblein and Heemstra for U. taeniopterus and four other ‘vittatus’ group goat fishes. The analysis, as well as DNA bar coding and area of distribution of species confirmed the samples as Upeneus supravittatus. The gill raker count on the upper and lower limbs of first gill arch was an important key in identifying the species. Though the number of gill rakers was almost similar for U. supravittatus, U. vittatus and U. taeniopterus, the size and position of the gill rakers confirmed that the collected samples were all U. supravittatus. The study also indicates the possibility that U. supravittatus has been hitherto wrongly reported as U. taeniopterus. A detailed taxonomic study on the Family Mullidae needs to be undertaken along the Indian coast using morphometric and meristic characteristics and DNA barcoding to resolve these taxonomic issues.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	DNA barcoding; Gill rakers; Species identification; ‘vittatus’ group
Subjects:	Demersal Fishes Demersal Fishes > Goat fishes
Divisions:	CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Biotechnology, Fish Nutrition and Health Division Subject Area > CMFRI > CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Biotechnology, Fish Nutrition and Health Division CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Biotechnology, Fish Nutrition and Health Division Subject Area > CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Biotechnology, Fish Nutrition and Health Division
Depositing User:	Arun Surendran
Date Deposited:	03 Apr 2023 09:29
Last Modified:	03 Apr 2023 09:29
URI:	http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/id/eprint/16934

Actions (login required)

View Item