Abstract
The age, growth parameters, spawning season, sex ratio, length at first sexual maturity andfecundity of the goldband goatfish, Upeneus moluccensis (Bleeker, 1855) caught in Elkhomscoasts of the Mediterranean Sea were investigated. It was found that, males constitute about47.7% its population. Length-weight relationship of both sexes was illustrated as:W = 0.01017 L3.01 for males andW = 0.00822 L3.09 for femalesThe age data derived from scale readings were used to estimate the growth parameters of thevon Bertalanffy equation and the calculated parameters were:L∞= 233.6 mm, K = 0.2274 and to = -1.872 for males andL∞= 234.4 mm, K =0.2120 and to = -1.983 for femalesIt was found that the maximum age of males and females attained five years only. The secondyear age group was dominated the population. Otherwise, maturation of males and femalesoccurred at a total length of about 11 cm. The monthly values of the gonado-somatic indexindicated that spawning of the studied fish take place mainly between May and July. Thefecundity-length relationship designated that the fecundity is highly correlated with the fishlength and expressed by the equation:Log F = 0.0268 + 3.8120 Log L (r = 0.995).INTRODUCTIONThe
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