Eggs and larvae of a Hemirhamphid fish from Mandapam

Abstract

During April 1959 a bunch of eggs attached to seaweeds were collected from the beach at Mandapam (Gulf of Mannar). The eggs were hatched in the laboratory and the larval development was followed for a few days. On the basis of the characters observed, the eggs and larvae are provisionally assigned to the hemirhamphid fish Hyporhamphus quoyi (C.V.) Published information on the eggs and early larval stages of Indian half-beaks is rather meagre. The eggs and larvae of Hemirhamphus georgii C.V. were described by Devanesan (1937) from Palk Bay and Chidambaram and Menon (1948) from West Hill, Calicut. Vijayaraghavan (1957) made some observations on the eggs and young stages of Hemirhamphus far (Forsk.) from the Madras waters. Talwar (1960) studied the eggs and larvae of Hemirhamphus marginatus C.V; from Mandapam. In the works of Bhattacharya (1916), Job and Jones (1938), Nair (1952), Jones and Sujansinghani (1954), Jones and Pantulu (1958) and Kuthalingam (1959) accounts on post-larval stages of different species of hemirhamphids are available.