ZSI scientists discover new fish species

BERHAMPUR: Scientists of Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have discovered a new species of vibrant orange coloured deepwater marine fish having a bony head with pointed rostral spines.The new species belongs to the Triglidae family and has been named as Pterygotrigla intermedica due to its characters that bear quite intermediate to similar resemblance to species like Pterygo Trigla hemistictus and P spirai.

The species was collected from Digha fishing harbour during the study of bycatch components along the northern part of the east coast. The specimen of the new species were captured by a bottom trawl from a depth of about 52 metre in the sea, nearly 90 km off West Bengal coast.

The new species commonly known as Gurnards or Searobins were caught by the fishermen of Digha as bycatch with other commercial fishes.Scientist of Estuarine Biology Regional Centre of ZSI at Gopalpur Anil Mohapatra said the specimen were found to be very distinct from other Gurnard species in various aspects like snout length, shape of the internuchal space and size of the cleithral spine.

“It has a distinct pectoral-fin with black membranes on the inner surface, white posterior margin and three small white spots basally in fin, each ray creamy white,” he said.The new species also bears a combination of characters. It has a long opercular spine and a very short cleithral spine, 56-62 lateral-line scales, two gill rakers (plus two rudimentary) on upper limb and 12-13 (plus 5-6 rudimentary) on lower limb of first gill arch, 8-10 bucklers (first and last one united) at the base of first dorsal fin, 27 vertebrae and a large black blotch between the fourth and sixth spines of the first dorsal fin.

The study team comprises Sanmitra Roy and Subhrendu Sekhar Mishra of Estuarine Biology Regional Centre, assistant professor of Bajkul Milani Mahavidyalaya (Purba Medinipur) Dipanjan Ray and Ankita Mishra from department of Marine Sciences, Berhampur university