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International Journal of Marine Science 2014, Vol.4, No.59, 1-5
http://ijms.biopublisher.ca
1
A Letter Open Access
First record of saddleback silver-biddy
Gerres limbatus
Cuvier, 1830 (Pisces:
Gerreidae) from Shatt Al-Arab River and marine territorial waters of Iraq
Atheer H. Ali , Jassim M. Abed, Majid M. Taher
Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources, College of Agriculture, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2014, Vol.4, No.59 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0059
Received: 24 Jul., 2014
Accepted: 29 Aug., 2014
Published: 21 Oct., 2014
Copyright
©
2014 Ali 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:
Ali et al., 2014, First record of saddleback silver-biddy
Gerres limbatus
Cuvier, 1830 (Pisces: Gerreidae) from Shatt Al-Arab River and marine territorial waters
of Iraq, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.4, No.59 1
-
5 (doi
Abstract
Ten specimens of Saddleback silver-biddy,
Gerres limbatus
Cuvier, 1830, were collected from Iraqi waters during 2010
through 2013. Two specimens were collected from the Shatt Al-Arab River and eight from marine territorial waters of Iraq near Khor
Al-Ummiah. Meristic and morphometric characters are given. Differences between this species and the three other gerreids known
from Iraqi waters [
G
.
filamentosus
Cuvier, 1829,
G. oyena
(Forsskål, 1775), and
G. longirostris
(Lacepède, 1801)] are discussed. The
present records bring the total number of
Gerres
species in Iraq to four. Additionally, two new size records are reported for this
species.
Keywords
Gerres limbatus
; Gerreidae; Perciformes; New distribution; Iraq; Arabian Gulf
Introduction
The Gerreidae are small to medium-sized perciform
fishes. Characteristics include a mouth strongly
protractile downwards when extended; acute teeth in
both jaws; first dorsal and anal spines very short;
pelvic fins with 1 spine and 5 rays; pectoral fins long
and pointed; and scale large and obvious. There are
9-11 dorsal spines in the Genus
Gerres
as compared to
12-18 in other genera of Gerreidae) (Woodland, 1983).
The Saddleback silver-biddy
, Gerres limbatus
Cuvier,
1830 is a small fish known from the southern and
western coast of India, Sri Lanka, the southern Malay
Peninsula, Gulf of Thailand and Indonesia, northern
and western limits of the Kathiawar Peninsula, and
the Mand River of Iran (Iwatsuki et al., 2001;
Borkenhagen, 2010).
Sivasubramaniam and Ibrahim (1982) studied fishes
of Qatar and reported
G. filamentosus
Cuvier, 1829
and
G. oyena
(Forsskål, 1775). Kuronuma and Abe
(1986) during their extensive survey in the Arabian
Gulf found only two species of Gerreidae,
G.
filamentosus
and
G. oyena
. Al-Baharna (1986) carried
out a survey of fishes of Bahrain and recorded
G.
argyreus
(Forster, 1801) (now
G. oyena
),
G. filamentosus
,
G. oyena,
and
Pentaprion longimanus
(Cantor, 1850).
Carpenter et al. (1997)
listed
Gerres acinaces
Bleeker,
1854 (now
G. longirostris
[Lacepède, 1801]),
G.
filamentosus
,
G. oyena
and
Pentaprion longimanus
in
the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
Gerres
longirostris
(reported as
Gerres acinaces
),
G.
filamentosus
and
G. oyena
have been reported from
United Arab of Emirates (Tamaei, 1999; EHC, 2003;
Al-Lamy et al., 2012).
Reports of species of Gerreidae in Iraqi waters are rare.
Khalaf (1961) and Mahdi (1962) reported
G. punctatus
Cuvier, 1830 (now
G. filamentosus
). Recently
Mohamed et al. (2012) collected two specimens of
G.
oyena
from Hamdan and Fao stations along of the
Shatt Al-Arab River. Ali (2013) recorded
G.
longirostris
from marine territorial waters of Iraq.
During extensive surveys of fishes from the Shatt
Al-Arab River and marine territorial waters of Iraq,
one species from family Gerreidae is recorded for the
first time in Iraq. The morphometric and meristic
characters which distinguished this species from other
three species found in the region are presented.
1 Materials and Methods
A total of 10 specimens of
G. limbatus
Cuvier, 1830
were collected from the Shatt Al-Arab River near
Hamdan (
30°28
’
N, 47°54
’
E)
and Abu Al-Khaseeb