Length Weight Relationship of five marine fishes associated with trawler bycatch with record of maximum total length from Eastern Indian Ocean

Abstract

Length-Weight Relationship (LWR) parameters were analyzed for five marine fish species associated with commercial trawler as bycatch from the Tamil Nadu coast, Eastern Indian Ocean: Rhynchostracion nasus, Scolopsis xenochrous, Stethojulis albovittata, Triacanthus nieuhofii and Engyprosopon grandisquama belonging to the five families viz., Ostraciidae, Nemipteridae, Labridae, Triacanthidae and Bothidae. Fishes were sampled monthly between August 2019 to March 2020 from the landings of trawlers operated along the coast of Tuticorin, Chinnamuttom and Colachel, Tamil Nadu coast, with a cod-end mesh size of 35 mm operated at the depth of 20-80 m. Values of the parameter b ranged from 2.734 for Stethojulies albovittata to 3.3300 for Rhynchostracion nasus and a values varied from 0.004115 Rhynchostracion nasus, 0.00809 Scoliopsis xenochrous respectively. All LWRs were significant with r2 values ranged from 0.80441 to 0.9912. In addition, this study provides the information on LWRs and also recorded a new maximum total length for Rhynchostracion nasus, Triacanthus nieuhofii and Engyprosopon grandisquama.