Otolith Morphology: Aid to Species Variation of Fishes of Family Leiognathidae

Abstract

Fish otoliths are calcium carbonated structure used as an aid to differentiate allied species from ten species of the family Leiognathidae along the coast of Maharashtra from October 2018 to February 2019. The species Gazza minuta, Karalla dussumieri, Karalla daura, Nuchequula mannusella, Nuchequula nuchalis, Eubleekeria splendens, Photopectoralis bindus, Leiognathus equulus, Deveximentum insidiator, Secutor ruconius of seven genera were differentiated on the basis of otolith morphology using otolith atlas and shape indices. Significant difference was observed in circularity, ellipticity, rectangularity, form-factor and roundness (p <0.05) with highest F ratio for Ellipticity and Roundness. The canonical discriminant analysis based on shape indices indicated 100 percent variability which was validated using Jackknife classification. The first two discriminant functions of the CDA performed with shape indices accounted for variance with all the species significantly differentiated except for Karalla dussumieri and Eubleekeria splendens overlapping. The Jackknife classification ranged from 18.8% to 94.4%, with 58.6% correct classification.