Priacanthus prolixus Starnes, 1988

Mohanty, Swarup Ranjan, Mohapatra, Anil & Bineesh, K. K., 2019, First report of Priacanthus prolixus Starnes, 1988 (Perciformes: Priacanthidae) from the West Bengal Coast, Records of the Zoological Survey of India 119 (3), pp. 289-291 : 290-291

Priacanthus prolixus Starnes, 1988

Common name Arrow bulleye

1988. Priacanthus prolixus Starnes , Bulletin of Marine Science, 43: 117-203.

Description: D X+15, A III+15, P 19, V I+5, GR 29-31, LL 76-84. Body elongated and laterally compressed. Extremely adherent, modified cycloid scales cover the body. Head relatively broad and about 2.7-3 in standard length. Mouth strongly oblique and large, head bears a unique character of Priacanthidea that is large eye which is 8.6-8.9 in Standard length and 2.9-3.2 in head length. Lower jaw projecting upwards both upper and lower jaw contains small conical teeth. A pair of nostrils located just below of eye. Anterior nostril rounded and posterior nostril like a transverse slit. Preopercle have slightly serrated margin and a serrated spine, caudal-fin margin concave. Scales in lateral line series is about 74-84 and scale rows between dorsal fin origin and lateral line is 10-

11. The details of morphometrics is given in Table1.

Colour: Body, head and fins dark orange red coloured. Pectoral fins reddish yellow; pelvic fin light dusky to dark, especially distally, with a black spot basally on dorsal surface ( Figure1 ). After preservation colour turned into silvery white. Seven dark red spots present on lateral line. Caudal fin with narrow black margin posteriorly.

Discussion: Genus Priacanthus represents six species in India that is Priacanthus hamrur (Forsskål,), Priacanthus tayenus Richardson, 1846 , Priacanthus sagittarius Starnes (1988) Priacanthus macracanthus Cuvier, 1829 , Priacanthus prolixus Starnes (1988) and Priacanthus blochii Bleeker, 1853 . Out of this six species only two species Priacanthus hamrur (Forsskål,) and Priacanthus tayenus Richardson, 1846 were reported from West Bengal coast ( Kar et al., 2017). Present study reports first time Priacanthus prolixus Starnes (1988) from the West Bengal. These six species are distinctly separated from each other

1 2 3 4 5

Pre-dorsal Length 3.4

Preanal Length 1.6 Depth at 6th dorsal spine 3 Head Length 2.7

Eye diameter 8.8

Inter orbital space 14.6 Snout Length 10.1 Pectoral Fin Length 5.5

1st dorsal Spine Length 16.5

2nd Doral Spine Length 11 10th Dorsal Spine Length 7.3

1st Anal Spine Length 11

2nd Anal Spine Length 8.2 3.2 3.7

3.3 3.4 3.4 3.3

1.7 1.8 1.8 1.8

3.1 3 3.1 3 2.7 3 2.9 2.8

8.6 8.9 8.6 8.6 14.1 14 14 13.5

10.4 10.3 10.3 10.7 5.5 5.2 5.3 5.5

18.3 17.8 damage 17.3

12 11.9 damage 12 7.8 7.3 7.3 8.2

12.48 10.7 10.3 12

10.4 9.2 9.1 9.7

3.1 2.9 2.9 3

with number of different characters specially gill rakers. Priacanthus sagittarius , Priacanthus hamrur , Priacanthus tayenus , Priacanthus macracanthus , Priacanthus prolixus and Priacanthus blochii having total gill rakers on first arch 19-22, 24-26, 21-24, 23-29, 28-31 and 17-22 ( Starnes, 1988). Focusing on gill rakers Priacanthus prolixus 28-31( Starnes, 1988) which is nearly equal to the other two species of the genus Priacanthus which is Priacanthus arenatus Cuvier, 1829 and Priacanthus meeki Jenkins, 1903 having 28-32 and 30-33 ( Starnes, 1988) number of gill rakers.These two species shows overlapping gill rakers count with Priacanthus prolixus , but also shows some differentiating characters. Priacanthus arenatus distinguished from Priacanthus prolixus by its body depth, where P. arenatus shows 2.6-2.8 and P. prolixus shows 2.9-3.1( Starnes, 1988). Priacanthus meeki also can

Figures

Figure 1. Priacanthus prolixus Starnes, 1988 from the West Bengal coast, East coast of India.