Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India

Fishery and biology of the carangid fish Megalaspis cordyla (Linnaeus) off Cochin.

Volume 37 Issue 1&2

S.Sivakami

Abstract

The paper embodies the fishery and biology of the Horse mackerel Megalaspis cordyla off Cochin. West coast of India contributes to the bulk of the catches in All India landings. The species is caught mainly in trawls, drift gill nets and purse seine from the area and landed at Cochin Fisheries Harbour contributing upto 13.76% of the carangid landings of the centre. The catch of M. cordyla at Cochin forms upto 11.26% that of Kerala. Seasonally, at Cochin Fisheries Harbour, M. cordyla is caught during pre-monsoon (January-May), and post-monsoon period (October-November) in trawls, during monsoon and post-monsoon (May- December) in drift gill nets and only during September-October months in purse scine.

M. cordyla exhibits a food preference for fishes especially Stolephorus spp. The species has a prolonged breeding season extending from April to February with a park during May to August, as has also been evidenced by Gonadospmatic index. Size at maturity of M. cordyla in both the sexes is 251-270mm. Chi- square test of sex ratio showed an overall dominance of females in the population. Fecundity of the species ranged between 91854 to 324292. There was no significant difference in the length weight regression co-efficient in the two sizes. Therefore a pooled fit for both the sexes together was drawn as Log W= -4.311030+ 2.687944 Log L. 

Date : 30-12-1995