Thirteen trawl hauls were conducted at depths ranging from 10 m-100 m. Fifty six finfish families were observed, comprising ninety seven species from eighty two genera. Ten commercially important finfish families were identified out of which the Haemulidae had the highest number of occurrence and distribution with catch per unit area (CPUA) of 36.17 Kg/Km 2. The Carangidae with CPUA of 22.09 Kg/Km 2 was the lowest in abundance and distribution of the important finfish families. The total biomass estimate of finfish from the entire survey area under investigation was 440 tons (t). The middle stratum, S2 (30 m-70 m) had the highest biomass followed by the land adjoining stratum, S1 (10 m-30 m) and the least stratum biomass was obtained from the farthest stratum, S3 (70 m-100 m). Fishing is optimized in the middle stratum, S2.

Little has been documented about delphinid communities in the Nigerian coastal waters. This paper gives baseline information about the delphinid community sighted off-shore Lagos, Nigeria. A dedicated survey of the living resources of Nigerian coastal waters (6°08'N and 2 0 42'W to 6 o 13'N and 3 o 27'W ) took place from the Nigeria/Benin boarder along Badagry area to the western part of Ondo State between 17th march and 6th June 2009 and included systematic visual searching of marine mammals. A total effective effort of 264 hours was logged. The boat moved along designated transect lines at a cruising speed of 9.2 km/h. Sighting rate for delphinids was obtained by processing visual data obtained at Beaufort wind scale of 2.5 to 4 nautical miles in visibility, using Distance 2.2 software. Species were identified through Photo-identification method. Fifteen (15) schools of 746 individual's sightings were made. Four (4) schools of 25 individuals representing 3% of total sightings were classified as "Unidentified", while 11 schools of 721 individuals (97%) were identified and classified into five (5) -2 school/hr was estimated for schools while the sighting rate for individuals was estimated at 2.83 individual/hr. The results suggested that the Lagos coast is rich in delphinid biodiversity, which needs to be quantified more accurately during further research.