New Records of Uncommon Fishes from the Andaman Islands, India

Abstract

Three uncommon fishes, viz. porcupine whipray, Urogymnus asperrimus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801), Shaggy angler, Antennarius hispidus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801), and barless cardinalfish, Taeniamia ataenia (Randall & Satapoomin, 1999), are reported herein as first records from the Andaman Islands. The former two are hitherto not reported from the Islands, while the latter was found to be a new record for India. Porcupine whipray and barless cardinalfish were identified based on in situ photographs. Shaggy angler was identified based on two specimens collected from a discarded commercial beach–seine fishery. Categorized by IUCN as Vulnerable, porcupine whipray is previously known from Lakshadweep and the peninsular coasts of India. The shaggy angler was reported from a shallow muddy habitat of 5–7 m in the present study. Though the type locality of barless cardinalfish is the eastern Indian Ocean, this has not been recorded earlier from India.