Development and systematics of early life history stages in some fishes of Porto Novo coast, India

Abstract

Interest on a study of development and systematics of early life history stages of marine fishes may be said to have originated as early as in 1865, when the eminent Norwegian planktologist G .O. Sars discovered that eggs of European cod, haddock, etc are planktonic and not benthic (vide: Russell, 1976 ; Ahlstrom and Moser, 1979). Subsequently, considerable attention was paid to this subject in England, Italy, Germany and United States of America (Ahlstrom and Moser, 1979). And, with progress of research in fisheries biology of commercially important species, it was re alized that absolute knowledge on development and systematics of early life history stages of marine fishes is required to assess thcir distribution and abundance in space and time (Ahlstrom, 1954; 1966).