An account on the deepsea shrimp Aristaeopsis edwardsiana (Johnson, 1867) from the Indian EEZ

Abstract

Aristaeopsis edwardsiana (Johnson,1867) is a deepsea shrimp of the continental slope that has not yet been reported in the targeted deepsea crustacean fishery along the Indian coast. An exploratory survey on-board FORV Sagar Sampada in the Arabian sea at a depth of 950 m off Trivandrum (lat. 8 0 28’ N and long. 76 014’ E) yielded a catch of A. edwardsiana at a high catch per unit effort (CPUE) of 14 kg h-1. The biological aspects of this less known deepsea shrimp species such as length frequency distribution, morphometric relations, sex ratio and the additional sexual dimorphism manifested in the antennal scale of males are reported.