Occurrence of Saurida isarankurai Shindo and Yamada 1972 from the west coast of India

Abstract

A total of eight species of the genus Saurim, Val. 1849, viz. Saurida tumbil (Bloch, 1795), Saurida gracilis Quay and Gaimard, 1824; Saurida undosquamis (Richardson 1848). Sourido longimonus Norman. 1939; Saurida micropectoralis Shindo and Yamada 1972 Sourido wanieso Shindo and Yamada, 1972, Saurida isarankurai Shindo and Yamada. 1972 and Saurida pseudotumbil Dull and Vidya Sagar, 1981 are known to occur in the seas around India (Day 1877, Munro 1955, Norman 1935, Rao 1977, Dutt and Vidya Sagar 1981, Nanda and Ramamoorthi 1982, Fischer and Whitehead 1974, Waples 1983). Dull and Vidya Sagar (1981) reported S. isarankuurai from India on the basis of material from Visakhapatnam and Kakinada, but did not provide any description. Later Nanda and Ramamoorthi (1982) reported this species again as a new record from India on the basis of one specimen from Porto Novo. While studying the taxonomy and biology of lizardfishes from the wcst coast of lndia, we collected several specimens of S. isarankuurai