International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No.4, 31-36
31
Research Report Open Access
First Records of Albinism and Dorsal Fin Anomaly Cases in Two Fish Species
Collected from Jubail Vicinity, Arabian Gulf, Saudi Arabia
Mustafa Ibrahim
1
, Laith A. Jawad
2
1 Ministry of Agriculture, Fish Welfare Branch, El-Jubail Province, Saudi Arabia
2 Flat Bush, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand
Corresponding email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No. 4 doi
Received: 22 Dec., 2016
Accepted: 3 Feb., 2017
Published: 24 Feb., 2017
Copyright © 2017
Ibrahim et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Ibrahim M., and Jawad L.A., 2017, First records of albinism and dorsal fin anomaly cases in two fish species collected from Jubail vicinity, Arabian Gulf, Saudi
Arabia, International Journal of Marine Science, 7(4): 31-36 (doi
Abstract
Two fish specimens with cases of albinism
Epinephelus areolatus
(Family: Epinephelidae) and dorsal fin aberration
Argyrops spinifer
(Family: Sparidae), were obtained during fishery surveys in Jubail City waters, Saudi Arabia, Arabian Gulf. These
are the first documented cases of albinism and dorsal fin anomaly ever reported from the Arabian Gulf area. The causative factors of
this anomaly were discussed.
Keywords
Abnormality; Abnormal pigmentation;
Epinephelus areolatus
;
Argyrops spinifer
; Soft fin rays; Fin aberration
Introduction
Albinism results from a hereditary lack of pigmentation. This is caused by a disorder in an enzyme that control
melanin metabolism (Kinnear et al., 1985). Forms of albinism can be: complete or total albinism, which is due to
a lack of skin pigmentation; incomplete, where parts of the fish body lack melanin pigment; imperfect, which is
recognized by reduced or light pigmentation in the skin and partial albinism or leucism resulting from reduced or
absence of pigmentation from localized portions of the skin (Berdeen and Otis, 2011). Complete albinism is
phenotypically known as a lack of integumentary and retinal melanin, indicating defects in the integumentary and
retinal melanophores. Both total and partial albinism have been previously reported for several species of teleost
fishes (Shinohara and Amaoka, 1993; Delgado et al., 2009; Mansur, 2011; Pillai and Somvanshi, 2011), as well as
among chondrichthyans (Ishihara et al., 2001; Bottaro et al., 2005; Sandoval-Castillo et al., 2006; Reum et al.,
2008; Veena et al., 2011; Bigman et al., 2015). When patches of reduced pigmentation are found distributed
among normal pigmentation, this case is known as leucism (Ebert, 1985; Bechtel, 1995; Acevedo et al., 2009).
Fin anomalies in wild and reared fish are well documented in literature (Divanach et al., 1996), but those of the
dorsal fin are not adequately reported (Hussain, 1979). Dorsal fin anomalies are usually involved in the
saddleback syndrome (Sfakianakis et al., 2003; Al-Mamry et al., 2010; Jawad and AL-Mamry, 2012). Due to the
unfavourable environmental conditions, different levels of skeletal deformities occur during the developmental
period of the fish (Bengtsson, 1988; Lemly, 1993; Sfakianakis et al., 2004; 2006). Therefore, skeletal deformities
are believed to be important markers of environmentally induced stress of fish in the wild (Bengtsson, 1988;
Lemly, 1993; Boglione et al., 2006; Koumoundouros, 2008).
Both albinism and dorsal fin deformity cases have not been previously recorded from the Saudi waters of the
Arabian Gulf. Here, we report the first record of albinism in
Epinephelus areolatus
(Family: Epinephelidae) and
the dorsal fin anomaly in
Argyrops spinifer
(Family: Sparidae) from the vicinity of Jubail City, Saudi Arabia,
Arabian Gulf coast.
1 Materials and Methods
One specimen with abnormal coloration of
E. areolatus
(TL 410 mm) and one specimen with deformed dorsal fin
of
A. spinifer
(TL 450 mm) were captured on 20th February 2013 in the waters of Jubail City Saudi Arabia. The
specimens were collected by local fishermen using drifting gill net. One specimens with normal coloration and
