Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 August 2020 | 12(11): 16628–16631
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5270.12.11.16628-16631
#5270 | Received 04 July 2019 | Final
received 16 July 2020 | Finally accepted 01 August 2020
Notes on the occurrence of a rare
pufferfish, Chelonodontops leopardus (Day, 1878) (Tetraodontiformes:
Tetraodontidae), in the freshwaters of Payaswini River, Karnataka, India
Priyankar Chakraborty 1, Subhrendu Sekhar Mishra 2 & Kranti Yardi 3
1,3 Bharati
Vidyapeeth Institute of Environment Education and Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth
(Deemed to be University), Pune, Maharashtra
411043, India.
2 Marine Fish
Section, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, West Bengal 700016, India.
1 priyankarchakraborty1991@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 subhrendumishra@gmail.com, 3 krantiyardi1@gmail.com
Editor: Akhilesh
K.V., ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Mumbai, India. Date of
publication: 26 August 2020 (online & print)
Citation: Chakraborty, P., S.S. Mishra & K. Yardi (2020). Notes on the occurrence of a rare pufferfish, Chelonodontops leopardus
(Day, 1878) (Tetraodontiformes: Tetraodontidae),
in the freshwaters of Payaswini River, Karnataka,
India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(11): 16628–16631. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5270.12.11.16628-16631
Copyright: © Chakraborty et al. 2020. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction,
and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to
the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: The first and third author would like to thank Dr Erach Bharucha, director of
BVIEER, Pune who provided encouragement and the necessary facilities to carry
out the research. The second author
expresses his gratitude to the director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata
for permission and facilities.
The pufferfish genus Chelonodontops
Smith, 1958 distinguishes itself from other genera of pufferfishes through
the combination of the following characters: presence of two lateral lines on
the flanks of the body, nasal organ with two flat skin flaps in appearance and
a weakly developed skin fold that extends in the ventrolateral part of the body
from the chin to the caudal fin base (Matsuura 2002; Psomadakis
et al. 2018). The genus Chelonodontops currently consists of six
valid species, viz.,: Chelonodontops patoca (Hamilton, 1822) widely distributed in the
Indo-Pacific, C. leopardus (Day,
1878) known from India and Myanmar, C. pleurospilus
(Regan, 1919) found in the eastern coast of South Africa, C. laticeps (Smith, 1948) also occurs along the
eastern coast of South Africa to Madagascar, C. alvheimi
Psomadakis, Matsuura & Thein 2018 reported
off Myanmar, the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and C. bengalensis Habib, Neogi,
Oh, Lee & Kim 2018 described from Bangladesh (Fricke et al. 2019).
From India, only two species of Chelonodontops
have been recorded till date, viz., C. patoca (mostly
recorded as Chelonodon patoca)
and C. leopardus (reported as Arothron leopardus). Day (1878) described a pufferfish species Tetrodon leopardus
and stated its locality as ‘seas of India’, but no specific locality mentioned.
Furthermore, it has been listed/reported from the state of Kerala (Bijukumar & Deepthi 2009; Zeena
& Beevi 2012), from Pulicat
Lake (Raj et al. 2002) and Tamil Nadu coast (Krishnan et al. 2007; Ramesh et
al. 2008; Barman et al. 2011) on the southeastern
coast.
This study reports Chelonodontops
leopardus from the Payaswini
River located in the state of Karnataka, India about 65km upstream from the
estuary.
Material: Six specimens of the species were collected
from the Payaswini River (12.5680N &
75.3820E) near Sullia, Dakshina
Kannada District of the state of Karnataka, southwestern India. The specimens were fixed in 10% formalin and
preserved in 70% ethanol and deposited to the marine fish section of Zoological
Survey of India, Kolkata and catalogued with no. ZSI F 13527/2. All measurements and counts follow Dekkers (1975). The
measurements were made point to point using digital vernier
callipers.
Chelonodontops leopardus (Day, 1878)
Image 1–2
Tetrodon leopardus Day, 1878, The fishes of India, (4): 706, Pl.
180 (fig. 2) (type locality: seas of India)
Chelonodontops leopardus Psomadakis et al. 2018, Ichthyological Research, 66(1): 52.
(India and Myanmar).
Material examined: ZSI F 13527/2, 6 ex., 66.7–85.5 mm
SL, Payaswini River (12.5680N & 75.3820E)
near Sullia, Dakshina
Kannada District, Karnataka, 16.v.2018, Priyankar
Chakraborty.
Description: Selected morphometric measurements are
provided in Table 1. Dorsal surface
covered with spinules that originate from the
interorbital region and extends to a midpoint between pectoral and dorsal fin
origin. Ventrally extended from the
throat to the anterior portion of the anus.
Two lateral lines, one extending from caudal fin base right up to the
posterior region of the eye and the second one branching out from the mainline
near the caudal peduncle and continues ventrolaterally
posterior to the pectoral fin. Nasal
organ with equal-sized flat skin flaps.
The body is moderately elongated.
Dorsal fin rays 11; anal fins rays
8–9; pectoral fin rays 16–18; caudal fin rays 10–11. Dorsal fin origin slightly anterior to
vertical through that of the anal fin.
Caudal fin truncate. Olive green
dorsally with a multitude of iridescent yellow spots which turns white on the ventro-lateral part of the body. Ventral side of the body white in color. Anal fin
dusky, caudal fin dark brown with several rows of white spots, pectoral and
dorsal fins pale. Three cross bands
across the body with the one over the head shaped like a V followed by a
thinner interorbital band. The second
above the pectoral fin and the third one from the base of the dorsal fin.
Discussion
Francis Day described Tetrodon
leopardus from the ‘Seas of India’ and no specific
type locality was mentioned (Day, 1878).
Ferraris et al. (2000), however, mentioned that the syntype of this
species at the Australian Museum (AMS B.7722) was from Madras (=Chennai). As observed from a specimen catalogue at
Zoological Survey of India, another specimen with catalogue number ZSI F2260
(currently lost) was purchased from Day and supposedly collected from Canara
(=Karnataka). This species was long treated under the genus Arothron until Psomadakis
et al. (2018) considered it as a member of the genus Chelonodontops
and redescribed with detailed diagnostic
features. It has been listed/reported as
Arothron leopardus
by many researchers across India (Jisha et al.
2004; Krishnan et al. 2007; Ramesh et al. 2008; Barman et al. 2011; Zeena & Beevi 2012). Psomadakis et al.
(2018) examined materials of C. leopardus and
placed them in the genus Chelonodontops with
the redescription of the species based on only two
specimens. They further mentioned that
the syntype (AMS B.7722) from Chennai(?) is a smaller individual and hence ontogenical and geographical differences maybe indicative of variation among populations.
It is interesting to note that the fish presently
under discussion were collected from inland freshwater body roughly 65km from
the nearest estuarine zone. Mastsuura (2017) suggested that ‘many marine dwelling
pufferfishes enter estuaries and rivers’.
Among the pufferfishes occurring in India, few species such as Carinotetraodon imitator Britz & Kottelat 1999, C.
travancoricus (Hora & Nair 1941), C.
patoca (Hamilton 1822), Dichotomyctere fluviatilis (Hamilton
1822), D. nigroviridis (Marion de Procé 1822), Leiodon cutcutia (Hamilton 1822), and Pao palembangensis (Bleeker 1851), are known from
freshwater regions.
Chelonodontops patoca have been reported from the freshwaters of Karnataka
and Kerala (Arunachalam et al. 1999, 2009).
In both these reports, the diagnosis of species does not include any
information about spinules on back, which is a major
distinguishing character from C. leopardus. While C. patoca
has spinules on the dorsal surface of head and
body extending from behind inter-orbital space nearly to dorsal fin origin, in C.
leopardus that extends from interorbital region
to midpoint between pectoral fin and dorsal fin origin (Psomadakis
et al. 2018). The original delineation
of C. patoca by Hamilton (1822) does not have
any spot on the caudal fin, while both the figures provided by Arunachalam et
al. (1999, 2009) have caudal fin bearing spots similar to the body which is a character
close to that of C. leopardus. Further examination of C. patoca materials, mentioned in Arunachalam et al.
(1999, 2009), are needed to clarify the taxonomic status or morphological
variant. Also, a similar species dubbed
as the Yellow-spotted pufferfish (Image 3) sometimes occur in the aquarium
trade. It adheres to the description
of C. leopardus in possessing spots
in the caudal fin region. The Payaswani River originates from Patti Ghat
Hills in Coorg District of Karnataka, which flows through Sullia
Town (Dakhin Karnataka), enters Kerala, and finally
reaches Kasaragod Town where it drains into the Arabian Sea. The present material obtained near Sullia Town is far away in upland than those of Arunachalam
et al. (2009) collected from the same river.
Table 1. Morphomerticcharacters
of examined Chelonodontops leopardus from Payaswini
River, Sullia, Karnataka.
Characters |
Percentage of SL/HL |
Standard length (SL) |
- |
Head length (HL) in % of SL |
33.9–42.5 |
Predorsal length in % of SL |
66.5–78.3 |
Dorsal fin length in % of SL |
17.8–22.3 |
Pectoral fin length in % of SL |
13.2–17.1 |
Anal fin length in % of SL |
16.3–19.1 |
Caudal fin length in % of SL |
25.3–30.2 |
Caudal peduncle depth in % of SL |
13.6–14.3 |
Eye diameter in % of HL |
29.8–35.7 |
Interorbital width in % of HL |
54.9–61.1 |
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