Surimi is a Japanese word for washed fish mince which can be used as a raw material for the preparation of various analogue products like shrimp, lobster, crab analogue, etc. which have a very good demand in the international market. Most of the lean fishes in tropical environment have good gel-forming ability, compared with fatty fishes but due to overexploitation of lean fishes its stock got depleted. However, fatty fish like lesser sardine have low gel-forming ability due to high fat content. Recently, plant phenolic compounds have been used successfully as protein cross-linkers. Therefore, an attempt has been made in the present investigation to extract phenolic compounds from seaweed which is abundantly available at the west coast of India and to use it as protein cross-linker in fatty fish, i.e. lesser sardine surimi. Water seaweed (Sargassum tenerrimum) extract (WSE) contained 16.24 mg tannin/g of dry seaweed powder. Effects of WSE at different levels (0.5-2.5 % of Surimi) on the properties of gels from lesser sardine (Sardinella brachiosoma) surimi were investigated in comparison with surimi gel without seaweed extract. Gels added with 2.0 % WSE had the increases in gel strength by 76.27 %, compared with the control (without addition of extracts). The lowered expressible moisture content was observed in surimi gels incorporated with 2 % WSE. Slight decreases in whiteness were observed with increasing seaweed extract concentration. Protein solubility % also indicates that, sample prepared with 2 % WSE have low solubility in 0.6 M KCL. There was no significant difference in the pH values of treated surimi gel and control surimi gel samples. Therefore, it may be concluded that the extract of seaweed can be used as gel enhancer in lesser sardine surimi with coincidental increase in texture likeness and had no negative effect on colour and odour likeness.

A new fish species, Stolephorus tamilensis sp. nov., is described from the East coast of India. The major distinguishing characters are 5–6 small needle-like pre-pelvic scutes on belly; maxilla tip pointed, reaching to border of operculum, concave and indented in the preoperculum; 25–28 gill rakers on lower lobe of the first branchial arch; dorsal fin without spine; 17–19 anal-fin rays. Moreover, S. tamilensis sp. nov. present higher average genetic divergence values at mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I and 16S rDNA loci in comparison with congeners. Also, nucleotide diagnostic characters exclusive to S. tamilensis are identified. Neighbor-joining analysis revealed close relation between S. tamilensis  and S. andhraensis.

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Surimi is a Japanese word for washed fish mince which can be used as a raw material for the preparation of various analogue products like shrimp, lobster, crab analogue, etc. which have a very good demand in the international market. Most of the lean fishes in tropical environment have good gel-forming ability, compared with fatty fishes but due to overexploitation of lean fishes its stock got depleted. However, fatty fish like lesser sardine have low gel-forming ability due to high fat content. Recently, plant phenolic compounds have been used successfully as protein cross-linkers. Therefore, an attempt has been made in the present investigation to extract phenolic compounds from seaweed which is abundantly available at the west coast of India and to use it as protein cross-linker in fatty fish, i.e. lesser sardine surimi. Water seaweed (Sargassum tenerrimum) extract (WSE) contained 16.24 mg tannin/g of dry seaweed powder. Effects of WSE at different levels (0.5-2.5 % of Surimi) on the properties of gels from lesser sardine (Sardinella brachiosoma) surimi were investigated in comparison with surimi gel without seaweed extract. Gels added with 2.0 % WSE had the increases in gel strength by 76.27 %, compared with the control (without addition of extracts). The lowered expressible moisture content was observed in surimi gels incorporated with 2 % WSE. Slight decreases in whiteness were observed with increasing seaweed extract concentration. Protein solubility % also indicates that, sample prepared with 2 % WSE have low solubility in 0.6 M KCL. There was no significant difference in the pH values of treated surimi gel and control surimi gel samples. Therefore, it may be concluded that the extract of seaweed can be used as gel enhancer in lesser sardine surimi with coincidental increase in texture likeness and had no negative effect on colour and odour likeness.

Chanos chanos is one of the Indo-West Pacific fish species normally found along the Indian coast. Because the breeding protocol for milkfish has been standardized in India, there is an urgent need to study the stock structure of the species to select the best traits for future breeding programs and to conserve the species. A total of 246 fish samples were collected from four locations, Chilika Lake and Mandapam lagoon, in the East coast and Cochin Backwaters and Mandovi-Zuari Estuary, in the West coast of India to delineate the stocks of Milkfish along the Indian coast. A total of 21 truss distances and five otolith shape indices were measured. Principal component analysis was conducted for truss and otolith data. Mid-body depth and caudal peduncle depth measurements were highly useful in discriminating the stocks. All shape indices differed significantly between the sampling locations. Cross-validation by discriminant analysis of morphometric traits revealed that 87.6% of the individuals were correctly classified into their respective locations, while otolith shape data classified 59.6% of the fish samples correctly to their sampling sites. This study revealed that there is the existence of different populations of this species at the respective sampling locations. Future studies should focus on delineating the populations from all the geographical locations along the Indian coast.