Incidences of caudal fin malformation in fishes from Jubail City, Saudi Arabia, Arabian Gulf

Abstract

These case studies endeavor to report incidences of caudal fin deformities in several commercial fishes living in natural populations in the Saudi Arabian coastal waters of the Arabian Gulf. Two groups of anomalies were observed, slight and severe. The carangid species, Parastromateus niger (Bloch) and the soleid species, Euryglossa orientalis (Bloch & Schneider), had slight cases of caudal fin abnormalities, while the species Oreochrromis mossambicus (Peters), Epinephelus stoliczkae (Day), Diagramma pictum (Thunberg), Cephalopholis hemistiktos (Rüppell), Lethrinus nebulosus (Forsskål), and Lutjanus sanguineus (Cuvier) had severe deformities. The abnormalities were assessed by morphological diagnosis. None of the cases was fatal as they occurred in adult individuals. The possible causes for these deformities as well as the suitability of this kind of case study for environmental monitoring are discussed. Further studies should be conducted from the perspective of pollution.

A Record of Fish Anomaly from the Sea of Marmara, Turkey: European Hake (Merluccius merluccius Linnaeus, 1758) Missing the Right Eye

“…Three anomaly cases have previously been noted for the Merlucciidae family. The hermaphroditism anomalies have been observed for Merluccius hubbsi species in the Buenos Aires coasts in South America (Ciechomski & Christiansen, 1968) and Merluccius productus species off the coast of Washington in the Pacific Ocean (Millikan & Pattie 1970) and one eye anomaly has been observed in Merluccius merluccius on the coast of Italy (Brian, 1952) and pug head deformity in the Aegean Sea (Jawad et al, 2018). The authors state that the anomalies in wild fish may be caused by pollution (Bengtsson, 1979;Bengtsson et al, 1985;Carls et al, 1990;Kingsford and Gray, 1996;Haaparanta et al, 1997;Kirchhoff et al, 1999).…”

Deformación de la Aleta Caudal en Alevín de Salmón del Atlántico (Salmo salar), en Etapa de Saco Vitelino

“…Existen varios factores ambientales que pueden causar deformidades de la aleta caudal, incluidos los efectos producidos por altas temperaturas, la contaminación por metales pesados, los efectos de la polución (Jawad et al, 2018), o los efectos producidos por luz continua en el desarrollo óseo (Wargelius et al). Nosotros descartamos los factores sanitarios debido a que los peces resultaron negativos a patógenos virales y bacterianos.…”

Morphological deformities in the invasive driftwood catfish Trachelyopterus galeatus in the Upper Paraná River basin, Brazil: a sign of human impact?

“…The species is not used in stocking programmes or aquaculture (Garcia et al ., 2018), which could provide anomalies from captive environments (Sfakianakis et al ., 2004). Thus, any deformities are probably related to the natural environment conditions (Jawad et al ., 2018).…”

“…Morphological deformities have been described for different species of fish around the globe in marine (Gangan et al ., 2018; Jawad et al ., 2018) and freshwater ecosystems (Rutkayová et al ., 2016; Da Silva & Casas, 2020). The development of abnormal bones and anomalies in the morphology of fish occurs during their early life stages, often associated with environmental conditions (Sfakianakis et al ., 2004), endogamy (Tave et al ., 1983) or pollution (Browder et al ., 1993; Lemly, 2002).…”

“…Therefore, the fish deformities there might denote the poor water quality in the environment (Mise et al ., 2017), which may also compromise the native fish assemblages (Malabarba et al, 2004; Flores‐Lopes & Reuss‐Strenzel, 2011). Thus, further analysis should be performed to clarify the factors influencing the deformities observed here (Rutkayová et al, 2016; Jawad et al ., 2018).…”