Lagocephalus lagocephalus ( Linnaeus 1758 )

Mohanty, Swarup Ranjan, Pradhan, Jyoshna, Patro, Shesdev, Mishra, Subhrendu Sekhar & Mohapatra, Anil, 2020, Short Communication First occurrence of Oceanic Puffer, Lagocephalus lagocephalus (Linnaeus, 1758), from Odisha, North-Eastern coast of India, Records of the Zoological Survey of India 120 (4), pp. 501-503 : 502

Lagocephalus lagocephalus ( Linnaeus 1758)

Oceanic puffer

1758. Tetrodon lagocephalus Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. , ed. 10: 332 (typelocality: India [Indian Ocean]).

2019. Lagocephalus lagocephalus : Burton and and Lee, Zookeys, 887: 101.

Materials examined: EBRC /ZSI/ F11846., 1 ex, 285.0 mm SL, Paradip fish landing centre, Odisha, 5.ix.2019 , S. R. Mohanty ; EBRC /ZSI/ F11847, 1 ex, 220.0 mm SL, Paradip fish landing centre, Odisha, 7.x.2019 , S. R. Mohanty .

Diagnostic Characters: Body slightly elongated and head blunt 32.2–35.0 % of standard length (SL). Nostril covered by a sac with two openings. Dorsal-fin rays 13; pectoralfin rays 14 and anal-fin rays 12. Dorsal fin origin closer to caudal fin origin than that of the pectoral fin origin, pre-dorsal length 72.0–72.2 % of SL. Anal fin origin slightly behind the anus, pre-anal length 64.8–65 % of SL; pre-pectoral length, 33.3–35.5 % of SL. Eye moderate in size, 20.7 – 21.4 % of head length (HL); interorbital space

35.7–36.8 % of HL, distinctly less than snout. Snout short, its length 41.4–42.5 % of HL. Pectoral fin, 17.4–18.0 % of SL. Body depth at gill opening, 22.5–24.8 % of TL and body depth at anus, 15.6–18.0 % of TL. Least depth of caudal peduncle 33.2% of its length. Spinules on dorsal surface between eye and dorsal-fin absent, but present on ventral side. Pelvic fin absent; upper lobe of caudal fin smaller than the lower lobe; dorsal- and anal-fin slightly falcate on posterior edge.

Colour: Distinct black spot on side near pectoral fins; lower third pectoral fins whitish ( Figure 1 ). Dorsal, Pectoral and caudal-fin rays black.

Distribution: Widely distributed along the tropical and subtropical seas: Western Atlantic, Eastern Atlantic; Indian Ocean, Pacific oceans, Mediterranean Sea ( Tortonese, 1986) and Adriatic Sea ( Dulčić and Pallaoro, 2006). From Indian waters this species was reported from Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Andhra Pradesh coast ( Jones and Kumaran, 1980; Hardy et al., 2014; Sujatha and Padmavathi, 2015).

Figures

Figure 1. The oceanic puffer, Lagocephalus lagocephalus (Linnauus, 1758) (EBRC/ZSI/ F11847) along Odisha coast.