Basic HTML Version
International Journal of Marine Science 2014, Vol.4, No.40: 1-5
http://ijms.biopublisher.ca
3
mandible is slightly concave. Adipose eyelid with
sharp indentation on its posterior margin. Jaws with
small teeth. Pectoral axil is black. Presence of
supraorbital. Cheeks are naked. Gill rakers with small
spines. Silvery body colour with upper half having
irregular brown spots. Dorsal fin with a horizontal
yellow single band on the spinous part. All fins with
orange edges. The base of the dorsal and anal ray with
black spot (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Equulites elongates, 98 mm total length (OMMSFC
1231)
Figure 4. Cheilinus lunulatus, 290 mm total length (OMMSFC
1232)
Cheilinus lunulatus
Total length of ten specimens collected was 290-410 mm
(Figure. 4). The morphometric and meristic characters
are given in Table 1.
The collected specimens of
C.
lunulatus
were characterised by having a deep body.
The anterior part of the head profile is straight and the
posterior part of the head profile is convexly curved.
Jaws are large and noticeable. Dorsal fin is continuous
and pelvic fin is reaching beyond origin of the anal fin.
Caudal fin rounded. Lateral line is interrupted at the
posterior end of the dorsal fin base. The scales are
reaching the bases of the dorsal and the anal fins.
Cheek, opercle and snout are scaleless. Body with
blackish colouration and with a single broad dark
green bar. Head is dark green. A prominent yellow
mark and small orange-red spots on opercular flap.
Dark green dorsal and anal fins, but anal with fewer
red markings. Caudal fin is black and pectoral fin
bright yellow. Pelvic fins dark green with 4-5
longitudinal streaks.
3 Discussion
Two of the three species reported in the present study,
showed narrow distribution
A. indicus
Schultz, 1964
and
C. lunulatus
, while
E. elongatus
(Günther, 1874)
displayed wide dispersal.
Antennarius indicus
and
E.
elongatus
have not been recorded from the Arabian
Gulf waters before.
The present distribution of the Indian frogfish
A.
indicus
is in the Western Indian Ocean from East
Africa, Gulf of Aden, and Seychelles to southeast
India and Sri Lanka, north to the Gulf of Oman
(Froese and Pauly, 2014). The nearest locality to the
Iraqi marine waters where this species is recorded is
the Gulf of Oman (Randall, 1995) (1320 Km). The
present record extends it range to the north, to the
Arabian Gulf coasts off Iraq where it considered as the
first record for this area. It also provides evidence that
Randall’s specimen (1995) was not just a sheer
accident of a stray event. It also support the suggestion
presented by Jawad and Al-Mamry (2009) that
their record of this species from the Arabian Sea
coasts of Oman has changed the rare status of this
species given by Randall (1995) to a common status.
The morphometric and meristic characters were
similar to those given by Randall (1995).The size of
the specimens reported by Randall (1995) (250 mm
total length), Froese and Pauly (2014) (230 mm total
length) and Jawad and Al-Mamry (2009) (45-148 mm
total length) are smaller than the range of the total
length in the specimens obtained in the present study
(230-260 mm). This makes the largest specimen
attained a new record size for this species.
This species differs from other
Antennarius
species in
having large esca consisting of a cluster of leaf-like
appendages, ten pectoral fin rays and presence of
round dark spot at base of second dorsal fin.
Froese and Pauly (2014) stated that the present
distribution of slender ponyfish
E. elongatus
(Günther,
1874) in the Indo-West Pacific region from the east
coast of Africa and off southwest India to the
Philippines, Japan and Australia. Recently it has been
recorded from theArabian Sea coasts of Oman (Jayabalan