Studies on the flatfish diversity of India

Nair, Rekha J (2011) Studies on the flatfish diversity of India. Doctoral thesis, Mahatma Gandhi University.

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Official URL: https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/25...
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Abstract

Fishes constitute slightly more than one half of the total number of approximately 54,711 recognized living vertebrate species of the world. Flatfishes represent an interesting and diverse order of marine, estuarine and to a lesser extent, freshwater euteleostean fishes. They are common species in most marine fish assemblages right from the poles to the tropics. Flatfishes captured in tropical fisheries are often not identified even to genus or family level rather, much of the catch is merely identified as “Pleuronectiformes”; 54-80% of the total landings of tropical flatfishes consist of unidentified species. For flatfishes inhabiting tropical seas, despite recent progress, considerable diversity is still being discovered and the taxonomy of many tropical flatfishes remains especially problematic. Failure to identify species, and erroneous species identifications, still represent serious impediments to collection of meaningful data for many of these smaller species. Work on Indian flatfishes has been scattered over the time period and ample scope exists for a study on the diversity of the group. Based on the present collections from different parts of South India and Andaman Islands during the period 2004 - 2010, 63 species of flatfishes belonging to 8 families and 26 genera have been collected. The most speciose family was Soleidae with 9 genera and 17 species, followed by Bothidae with 9 genera and 14 species and Cynoglossidae with 2 genera and 13 species. Family Bothidae had representations from deep sea. New distributional records were Aserraggodes kobensis and Brachirus annularis for the Indian waters. Psettodes erumei a major resource in the flatfish fishery has virtually been absent in the landings except for stray numbers in large trawlers off Mangalore. The study points out the decline of the resource off South India. This calls for immediate steps to device steps to protect and preserve this species. New emerging resources in the fishery are Synaptura commersoniana in the estuarine landings off Kochi. Occurrence of Pardachirus pavoninus, Heteromycteris oculus and Paraplagusia bilineata in the ‘rollermadi’ landings at Pamban point to the existence of these ornamental varieties in the Gulf of Mannar.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Biodiversity; Biological diversity; Flatfishes; Flatfish fisheries; India
Subjects: Demersal Fishes > Flat fishes
Demersal Fisheries
Divisions: CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Capture > Demersal Fisheries Division
Subject Area > CMFRI > CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Capture > Demersal Fisheries Division
CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Capture > Demersal Fisheries Division
Subject Area > CMFRI-Kochi > Marine Capture > Demersal Fisheries Division
Depositing User: Arun Surendran
Date Deposited: 31 Jan 2020 06:42
Last Modified: 31 Jan 2020 06:42
URI: http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/id/eprint/14078

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