First Record of the Grey
Reef Shark Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos,
(Bleeker, 1856) (Carcharhiniformes:Carcharhinidae) from the Lakshadweep Sea, India
K.V. AneeshKumar 1, S. Paresh Khanolkar2, P. Pravin 3, B. Meenakumari 4 & E.V. Radhakrishnan 5
1,2,3 Central Institute of
Fisheries Technology, Matsyapuri P.O, Willington
Island, Cochin, Kerala 682029, India
4 Indian Council of
Agricultural Research, Krishi Anusandhan Bhavan-II, New Delhi 110012, India
5 Central Marine Fisheries
Research Institute, Cochin, Kerala 682018, India
1 menoncift@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 kh_paresh@rediffmail.com, 3 pravinp2005@gmail.com,4 meenakumarib@gmail.com, 5 evrkrishnan@gmail.com
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3223.987 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:076AC7CE-BF02-489E-9649-3B05A502D64E
Editor: E. Vivekanandan, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute,
Chennai, India. Date
of publication: 26 January 2013 (online & print)
Manuscript details: Ms #
o3223 | Received 29 May 2012| Final received 27 October 2012 | Finally accepted
08 December 2012
Citation: K.V.A.
Kumar, S.P. Khanolkar, P. Pravin,B. Meenakumari & E.V. Radhakrishnan (2013). First Record
of the Grey Reef Shark Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos, (Bleeker,
1856) (Carcharhiniformes: Carcharhinidae)
from the Lakshadweep Sea, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(1):
3580Ð3582; doi:10.11609/JoTT.o3223.987
Copyright: ©
Kumar et al. 2013. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTTallows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and
distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of
publication.
Funding: The
financial assistance received from NAIP, ICAR, Govt.
of India is gratefully acknowledged.
Competing Interest: None.
Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful for the
encouragement given by the Director, CIFT, Kochi,
India during the course of this work.
For
figures, images, tables -- click here
Grey
Reef Shark Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos(Carcharhiniformes: Carcharhinidae) is a widely distributed requiem shark in the Pacific Ocean, and has an
extensively scattered distribution in the Indian Ocean (Compagno1984; William 2006). Indian
elasmobranch fishery is one of the largest in the world (Vannuccini1999) but information available on this species is very scanty (Raje et al. 2007). Pillai & Parakal(2000) and Joshi et al. (2008) have reported the presence of C. amblyrhynchos landings from Indian waters. Grey Reef Shark is a typical Ôreef
sharkÕ, found in clear tropical waters often from 10Ð50 m around coral
reefs, in shallow water near coral slopes of islands and continents
particularly near drop-offs, passes of fringing reefs and relatively common in
atolls (Wetherbee et al. 1997; Economakis& Lobel 1998). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals
categorizes C. amblyrhynchos as Near
Threatened (Smale 2009), possibly due to its
restricted habitat, site fidelity, inshore distribution, small litter size, and
relatively late age at maturity, along with increasing fishing pressure.
Information
available on the diversity and abundance of carcharhinidsharks in Indian waters is very meager though they contribute a major
portion of the fishery. No
scientific information is available on the presence of Grey Reef Shark in
Lakshadweep waters which are known for coral reef biodiversity. In this paper,
evidence for the occurrence of C. amblyrhynchosin Lakshadweep Sea is presented.
A female Grey Reef Shark C. amblyrhynchoswas landed by fishermen from longline operation off Agatti Island in Lakshadweep Sea on 25 November 2010 (Image
1). The shark was caught by 3.4 Sun
Japanese tuna hook and the location of capture was recorded as 10047ÕN
& 72009ÕE (Image 2). The morphometric measurements of the shark were made to the nearest
millimeter and weight was measured to the nearest gram. The species identification was based on Compagno (1984).
Results and Discussion
The
morphometric measurements of the specimen are given in Table 1. The total length (TL) of the specimen
was 126cm and standard length (SL) was 106cm. The Grey Reef Shark is a moderately
stocky species, distributed in the coastal and pelagic waters of
Indo-Pacific. Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos can be identified by the following
characters: dusky grey color above and white below; first dorsal fin
irregularly to prominently white edged (Image 3); posterior margin of the
caudal fin with a conspicuous broad black margin; pectoral, second dorsal, anal
and pelvic fins with blackish or dusky tips and prominent blackish margin
(Image 4). The First dorsal fin is
moderately large and semifalcate with a narrowly
pointed apex. Second dorsal fin is
moderately large and high. Pectoral
fins falcate. Snout
fairly long and broadly rounded. Eyes are round and fairly large. Upper labial furrows short and inconspicuous. Inter dorsal ridge absent. Upper teeth are narrow and serrated
(Image 5). The species inhabits continental
and insular shelves preferably on coral reefs and in shallow lagoons. The area
from where the specimen is reported was near the coral ridge in Lakshadweep
Sea. Present record is the first
report of Carcharhinus amblyrhynchosfrom the Lakshadweep Archipelago.
References
Compagno, L.J.V. (1984). Sharks of
the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of
shark species known to date. Part 2ÑCarcharhiniformes. FAO Fish
Synopsis 4(125): 251Ð655.
Economakis, A.E.
& P.S. Lobel (1998). Aggregation
behavior of the Grey Reef Shark Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos, at Johnston Atoll, Central Pacific
Ocean. Environmental Biology of Fishes 51:
129Ð139.
IUCN (2011). IUCN Red
List of Threatened Species. Version 2011. www.iucnredlist.org.
(Downloaded on 18 November 2011).
Joshi, K.K., K. Balachandran & S.G. Raje (2008). Changes in the shark fishery at Cochin.Journal of Marine Biological Association India 50 (1): 103Ð105.
Pillai, P.P.
& B. Parakal (2000). Pelagic Sharks in the Indian
Seas-their Exploitation, Trade, Management and Conservation. Central
Marine Fisheries Research Institute Special publication 70: 1Ð95.
Raje, S.G., S. Sivakami, G. Mohanraj, P.P. Raju & K.K. Joshi (2007). An atlas on the elasmobranch
fishery resources of India. CMFRI Special Publication 95: 253pp.
Smale, M.J. (2009). Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN
Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>.
Downloaded on 17 January 2013.
Vannuccini, S.
(1999). Shark utilization, marketing and trade. FAO
Fisheries Technical Paper 398.
Wetherbee, B.M., G.L. Crow & C.G.
Lowe (1997). Distribution,
reproduction and diet of the gray reef shark Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos in Hawaii. Marine
Ecology Progress Series 151: 181Ð189.
William, D.R. (2006). Abundance, demography and population structure of Grey Reef Shark
(Carcharhinus amblyrhinchos)
and the white tip Reef Shark (Triaenodon obesus) (Fam. Carcharhinidae).PhD Thesis, James Cook University, Australia, 197pp.