English

Abbas Al-Faisal,Falah Mutlak

doi:10.26842/binhm.7.2018.15.2.0163

English

Abbas Al-Faisal, Falah Mutlak

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.26842/binhm.7.2018.15.2.0163

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Abstract

A survey of fish species in the Iraqi marine waters was carried out for the period from November 2014 to March 2018. The list included 214 species representing 75 families. The family Carangidae dominated the marine fishes in Iraq, which was represented by 24 species, followed by Haemulidae with 11 species, and then Serranidae and Sparidae with nine species for each, while 34 families contained a single species only.

Highlights

The Arabian Gulf is a semi-enclosed shallow sea located in the subtropical climate
A total of 214 species belonging to 75 families and 21 orders were recorded from the Iraqi marine waters (Tab. 1), (Pl.1 and 2 showed some species)
The number of cartilaginous fish species (Class: Elasmobranchii) was 16 species and the number of bony fish species (Class: Actinopterygii) was 198 species; the order Perciform dominated the ichthyofauna of the Iraqi marine waters, which is represented by 36 families and 132 species

Summary

Introduction

The Arabian Gulf is a semi-enclosed shallow sea located in the subtropical climate. The Gulf is considered biologically impoverished, due to its environmental characteristics, in addition to its young age (Randall, 1995; Jabado et al, 2015). The potential sources of nutrients and organics in the northwestern Arabian Gulf are Shatt Al-Arab river and its associated marshes (Al-Yamani, 2008; Al-Mudaffar and Mahdi, 2014). The fish species recorded in the Arabian Gulf were derived from the Indian Ocean, besides demonstrating that the Indian Ocean species cover the entire gulf and reaching even its most northern range (Hussain and Naama, 1989). The fish fauna of the Arabian Gulf have been identified by several systematic works (Blegvad and Løppenthin, 1944; Kuronuma and Abe, 1986; Randall, 1995; Assadi and Dehgani, 1997, Carpenter et al, 1997; Bishop, 2003; Iwatsuki et al, 2013)

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