Food of the Indian mackerel, Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier) taken by drift-nets in the Arabian sea off Vizhingam, South Kerala

Abstract

Being one of the most important neritic pelagic specie:., the Indian mackerel, RastrelUger kanagurta (Cuvier), has been, the object of investigations by many fishery biologists. On the West Coast of India, while this species supports a rich commercial fishery, its distribution on the East Coast is only of biological interest. Most of the earlier works (Devanesan and John, 1940; Devanesan, 1942; John and Menon, 1942 and Chidambaram, 1944) are of brief notes dealing with the nature of food of the mackerel on the West Coast of India. In recent years, Chidambaram et al. (1952) have studied in detail the fat variations, sizo composition, maturity and food habits of the mackerel. Bhimachar and George (1952) have given a detailed account of the seasonal fluctuations in the food of this species from Calicut. Mention should be made of the comprehensive works of Pradhan (1956) and Sekharan (1958) on the fishery and certain biological aspscts of the mackerel from the Konkan Coast. Our knowledge on the biology of this species from the East Coast of India is confined to the recent works of Kuthalingam (1956) from Madras, Rao and Rao (1957) and Rao (1962) from Waltair.