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Studies on the flatfish diversity of India

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Relation http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/14078/
https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/25908
 
Title Studies on the flatfish diversity of India
 
Creator Nair, Rekha J
 
Subject Flat fishes
Demersal Fisheries
 
Description 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.
 
Date 2011
 
Type Thesis
PeerReviewed
 
Format text
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/14078/1/Thesis_2011_Rekha%20J%20Nair.pdf
Nair, Rekha J (2011) Studies on the flatfish diversity of India. Doctoral thesis, Mahatma Gandhi University.