The Indian Council for Agricultural Research - National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources (NBFGR) has identified two new species of marine fish in Tamil Nadu.
One of them, a sardine variety from Pattinapakkam fish landing centre in the city, was named ‘Dussumieria modakandai’. It is consumed by the local population. The discovery was published in the international journal Fish Biology in December 2021.
A species of eel, belonging to congrid eels group, was discovered from the specimen collected at Colachel fish landing centre in Kanniyakumari district. It has been named ‘Ariosoma albimaculata’ (white spotted stout conger). Albimaculata is derived from the Latin words: albus, meaning white and maculatus, meaning spotted, denoting the white spot on the dorsal-fin origin. The eel is 240-487 mm-long and has a grey, shiny body with dark marks or spots on the posterior-dorsal margin of the eyes.
NBGFR sources said the species’ description is based on the 10 specimens, collected from the deep-sea trawl by-catch from Colachel fish landing centre.
According to the NBFGR, the fishermen had said that the eel was caught at a depth of 200 m along the Arabian sea.
It was non-poisonous, living in unusual habitats such as continental slope and underwater seamount crevices. The species is possibly distributed along the south-west coast of India, so far only in the coastal waters of Kanniyakumari. It is the eighth species of congrid eels to be documented in Indian waters, all of which were by-catch in trawl landings.
The bureau, after a taxonomic and molecular analysis, confirmed the novelty of the species and published its findings in the international journal Ichthyological Research.
The article — ‘Description of a new congrid eel, Ariosoma albimaculata sp. nov. (Anguilliformes: Congridae), from the southwest coast of India, Arabian Sea’— was authored by Paramasivam Kodeeswaran, Deepa Dhas, Thipramalai Thangappan Pillai Ajith Kumar and Kuldeep Kumar Lal. NBFGR scientists are studying the biology and nutritional status of the species. According to them, most eel groups are by-catch products without any economic value.
Extensive sample to understand the aspects of the fish group and biodiversity along the Indian coast and islands in Tamil Nadu, would provide better insight into the diversity and evolution of the eel groups, NBFGR sources said.
