CHECKLIST FOR COMMERCIALLY IMPORTANT FOOD FISHES OF PARANGIPETTAI , SOUTHEAST COAST OF INDIA

Fish forms a vital source of food and is man’s important source of high quality protein, providing 16% of the animal protein consumed by the world’s population (FAO, 2000) [1]. Marine fisheries have emerged as one of the largest industries in the country employing about 10 million people in 3,651 fishing villages along the 8,129 Km coastline of India earning foreign exchange of over 7250 crores in 2009-2010.


INTRODUCTION
Fish forms a vital source of food and is man's important source of high quality protein, providing 16% of the animal protein consumed by the world's population (FAO, 2000) [1].Marine fisheries have emerged as one of the largest industries in the country employing about 10 million people in 3,651 fishing villages along the 8,129 Km coastline of India earning foreign exchange of over 7250 crores in 2009-2010.
India has an EEZ of 2.02 million Km 2 and is endowed with a rich variety of demersal fishery resources.The exploited demersal finfish resources increased from 0.75mt in 1985 to register the peak of 1.35 mt in 1998.However, it decreased to 1.15 mt in 2004 (Srinath et al., 2006) [2].About 700 species of finfish have been recorded from the Indian sea bottom of which about 250 are common to the demersal fisheries.Species richness of demersal is more off the east coast than off the west coast (Bensam, 2000) [3].
Tamil Nadu has a coastline of about 1,076 Km (13% of the country's coastline), 1.9 lakh Km 2 of Exclusive Economic Zone (9% of India's EEZ) and a continental shelf of about 41,412 Km 2 .Tamil Nadu alone produced 363,000 tons of marine fish and 112,00 tons of inland fish amounting altogether to 475,000 tons of total fish in the year 2008 (total for the whole India 2.8 million tons).
In the southeast coast of India, Parangipettai waters where the present swot was carried out harbour a variety of food fishes, shrimps and other shellfishes.The fishes landed daily were marketed at the local fish market and in the surrounding villages and the choice items were moved to interior places so also exported.The surplus is sundried.As a wide range of fin fishes were contributing in the catch, hence a checklist has been made for the commercially important food fishes occurring in the waters of Parangipettai (southeast coast of India).

Study site
Parangipettai (lat.11̊ 30' N, long.79̊ 46' E) situated on the southeast coast of India is endowed with a variety of biotopes such as neritic, estuarine, backwater and mangrove swamps (Figure1).At this consign an estuary named "Vellar" debouches into the Bay of Bengal, where it's origin is in the Shervaroyan hills of Salem district, 240 Km. west of Parangipettai.This estuary is 600 metres wide at its junction with the sea.This is a true estuary and is subjected to long term seasonal variations.During the northeast monsoon (October to December) it drains more of fresh water.

Sample collection and processing
Samples (fishes) were collected from the commercial fish landings at two popular landing centres namely Annankovil and Mudasalodai which are situated in the coastal waters of Parangipettai for a period of one year (January 2010-December 2010), no sampling was done in the month of May, due to the fishing holiday in the coast of Tamil Nadu.The collected fishes were kept in ice boxes and transferred to the laboratory and washed in tap water.The fishes were identified up to the species level.FAO species identification sheets for fishery purposes (EASTERN INDIAN OCEAN fishing area 57 and WESTERN CENTRAL PACIFIC fishing area 71) were used for species level identification.For further studies specimens were preserved in 5% formalin after identification.Mechanized trawlers, mechanized boats, catamarans, plank-built boats and dugout canoes were mainly employed for fishing.Gill nets (35mm) and trawl nets (80cm-10cm) are commonly used gears in the study area.

Identification flowchart
1. Wash the fish to be identified and remove all sand/sediment adhering to.Make sure that the fish is not damaged so as to obliterate the morphological configuration (do no prefer any spoiled or deteriorated fish).
2. To familiarise yourself with all measurements with the help of pictorial presentations.
3. Look for any conspicuous/predominant characters such as the presence of operculum, type of caudal fin, nature of dorsal fin and spine, lateral line, scutes, dark blotches, nature of snout, possessed by the fish.On successful examination, we could arrive tentatively at the family to which the given fish may be belonging.
4. After arriving at the family level, examine the list of species given under each family.Compare the character of the collected species with characters for each species under that family.While doing so, it is better to stick on to the meristic characters.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A total of 447 individuals were collected and 93 species belonging to 57 genera and 42 families were identified (Table 1).About 97 species of teleost fishes were identified from Parangipettai waters [4].In the present study, the catch and the fishery contributed varied between months.The family Carangidae ranked first with a maximum number of 7 species followed by Synodontidae (6 species), Engraulidae (6 species), Mugilidae (5 species), Leiognathidae (5 species) and Lutjanidae (4 species).All the species recorded were not observed in all the months.A total of 254 species belonging to 17 families were recorded in the Indian Ocean [5].Of all the 93species recorded, the representatives of Clupeiformes were present in the sampling site throughout the year.The fishery in this study area was not only supported from marine, but also from the adjacent estuarine waters, where the river Vellar joins the Parangipettai coastal waters.The presence of the above representatives throughout the year indicates their ability to withstand in any adverse conditions.
The number of species found in all the months fluctuated seasonally.This may be due to the increase in the fishing efforts as the fishermen are going to deeper regions for fishing, as a result the fleet may migrate to faraway places.On the other hand, the influence of biological processes also tends the animals to migrate to another fishing ground.
All the species observed in this study were of having commercial importance.They are fetching more cost by means of export at times of heap landings.Several studies were done on the biodiversity of marine fishes in the coasts of Tamil Nadu.Similar results were obtained in the study taken in Puducherry coastal waters by [6].For the Eastern Indian ocean where the study area is situated, works on such aspects are scanty.
A total of 885 species belonging to 150 families were recorded in the South-Western Indian Ocean [7].However, such kind of works are not much of interest in the Indian context, worldwide several works had been done.About 107 fish species belonging to 32 families have been reported from Malaysian waters [8].53 species from 13 families were also been observed in the streams of Sao Paulo state [9].
The number of species in this checklist is not final as there might be changes regarding the valid fish names in the future or new recorded species.Since Parangipettai coast is having close connections with the backwaters and small tributaries, there may be chances for some more species to enter in these waters, which may increase the numbers in this list.Optimistically this checklist will be a good reference for current and future studies.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Map showing the study area

Table 1 :
Month wise data on list of fishes observed from the study area during the year 2010-2011.(x: present; -: absent; N: No sampling due to fishing holiday)