Journal of Threatened
Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2023 | 15(2): 22737–22740
ISSN 0974-7907
(Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8171.15.2.22737-22740
#8171 | Received 19
November 2022 | Final received 26 January 2023 | Finally accepted 27 January
2023
First record of the Great
Seahorse Hippocampus kelloggi Jordan &
Snyder, 1901 (Actinopterygii: Syngnathiformes: Syngnathidae) from the northwestern coast of Bay of Bengal
Anil Kumar Behera 1,
Biswajit Mahari 2 & Amrit Kumar Mishra 3
1,2 Department of Marine Sciences,
Berhampur University, Odisha 760007, India.
3 Department of Marine
Conservation, Bombay Natural History Society, Hornbill House, Opp. Lions Gate,
Mumbai, 400001, India.
1 anilmarinebio@gmail.com, 2 jitbiswajitmahari00@gmail.com,
3 a.mishra@bnhs.org (corresponding author)
Abstract: This study reports the first
occurrence of the Great Seahorse Hippocampus kelloggi
from the state of Odisha in the eastern coast (Bay of Bengal) of India. The
seahorse was captured in a ring net during daily fishing activities. The sample
was collected from the Ariyapalli fish landing center
and identification was carried out based on the morphometric features of the
specimen and the seahorse identification guide. The total length of the
juvenile seahorse was 12.5 cm (with a tail length of 6.6 cm (52.8%), trunk
length of 3.4 cm (27.2%) and head length of 2.5 cm (20%)). The length of the
snout was 1 cm. There were 38 tail rings followed by 11 rings on the trunk of
the animal. Both eye and cheek spines were present. Northward migration (~1,300
km) of this species can be a response of extensive fishing activities around
the southern coast of India. This calls for increased monitoring of the coast
coastal ecosystems of India on the east coast for better conservation and
management of the remaining seahorse populations.
Keywords: Conservation, Kellog’s Seahorse, migration, monitoring, Vulnerable.
Editor: R. Ravinesh, Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology,
Kochi, India. Date of
publication: 26 February 2023 (online & print)
Citation: Behera, A.K., B. Mahari & A.K. Mishra (2023). First record of the Great
Seahorse Hippocampus kelloggi Jordan &
Snyder, 1901 (Actinopterygii: Syngnathiformes: Syngnathidae) from the northwestern coast of Bay of Bengal. Journal of Threatened Taxa 15(2): 22737–22740. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8171.15.2.22737-22740
Copyright: © Behera et al. 2023. 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: No funding
was received for this study.
Competing interests: The authors
declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: The authors thank Indian
Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar for their support in providing laboratory
space.
Seahorses belong to the single
genus Hippocampus are a unique and remarkable group of fishes that have
unusual body shapes (e.g., horse-like head structure) and biology (e.g., where
males incubate fertilized eggs) inhabiting shallow coastal ecosystems worldwide
(Foster & Vincent 2004; Lourie et al. 2004; Zhang & Vincent 2018). The
Indo-Pacific region is one of the hotspots of seahorse populations that are
distributed across diverse ecosystems such as seagrass, mangroves, macroalgal
beds, and coral reefs, while inhabiting the shallow estuaries, lagoons, and
subtidal regions up to 15 m depth (Foster & Vincent 2004; Salin et al. 2005; Balasubramanian & Murugan 2017; Li et al. 2021). Around 46 species of
seahorse species are reported worldwide with 12 species found in the
Indo-Pacific region; eight species as ‘Vulnerable’ (VU) (Hippocampus arbourin, H. kelloggi,
H. kuda, H. mohnikei,
H. spinosissimus, H. trimaculatus,
H. fuscus, and H. histrix),
four ‘Data Deficient’ (DD), and one ‘Least Concern’ (IUCN 2022). Most of the
seahorse population in the Indo-Pacific are under decline due to their
overexploitation for traditional Chinese medicines (e.g., Hippocampus capensis, H. kelloggi, H. kuda, H. trimaculatus, and H.
histrix) and as ornamental fishes, combined with
general destructive fishing and fisheries bycatch (Sreepada
et al. 2002; Foster & Vincent 2004; Kavungal
& Saravanan 2015; Jeyabaskaran et al. 2018; Zhang
& Vincent 2018).
The coastal ecosystems of India
inhabit nine out of 12 species of seahorses found in the Indo-Pacific—Hippocampus
trimaculatus (VU), H. kuda
(VU), H. fuscus (VU), H. spinosissiums (VU), H. kelloggi
(VU), H. histrix (VU), H. mohinekei (VU), and H. camelopardalis
(DD) spread across eight states and five union territories (Vaidyanathan &
Vincent 2021). However, detailed studies on distribution and diversity of
seahorses in India is limited mostly to the Gulf of Mannar
and Palk Bay region in the southeastern coast of India (Salin
et al. 2005; Balasubramanian & Murugan 2017).
Despite the ban on fishing and trading activities on seahorses from 2001 (MoEFCC 2001), clandestine fishing and trading still takes
place in India (Sreepada et al. 2002; Kavungal & Saravanan 2015). This creates immense
pressure on the seahorse populations that have high dependency on local
habitats to maintain their extensive and long-life history traits (Foster &
Vincent 2004). For successful maintenance of their population seahorses depend
on range extension and migration to new habitats despite being poor swimmers
and their dependence on rafting for long-distance dispersal (Teske et al. 2005; Luzzatto et
al. 2013). Range extension in seahorses of India has been previously documented
for H. fuscus from southeastern coast, northwards
towards the Chilika lagoon (Mahapatro
et al. 2017), and for H. mohnikei from the
southeastern coast into Mandovi estuary in Goa (Sanaye et al. 2020). Hippocampus kelloggi
is one of the common seahorse species found along the Coromandel coast with distribution
limited only to the southeastern coast of India (Kavungal
& Saravanan 2015; Vaidyanathan & Vincent 2021).
Methods
The specimen was collected from Ariyapalli fish landing center (19.300N &
84.960E), Ganjam, in the state of Odisha,
east coast of India (Figure 1). The seahorse was caught in a ring net (fishing
net) on 21 May 2022 during the sample collection for trash fishes along the Ariyapalli fish landing center. All morphometric
measurements were recorded using a vernier caliper.
The specimen was identified using seahorse identification guide (Lourie et al.
2004), and pictures were taken for photographic evidence.
Results and
Discussion
The total length of the H. kelloggi specimen in this study was 12.5 cm, that
consisted of 52.8% as tail length (6.6 cm), 27.2% as trunk length (3.6 cm), and
20% as head length (2.5 cm) (Table 1). The total number of rings on the
seahorse was 49, with the tail consisting of 38 rings and the trunk with 11
rings (Table 1). There was a single spine on the eye and cheek bones (Image 1).
The snout length was 1 cm and smaller compared to the head length (Table 1).
The total body length (12.5 cm) of the individual in this study was lower than
the average length of the H. kelloggi (28 cm),
suggesting the captured specimen was a juvenile and not a mature adult that
grows up to 28 cm (Lourie et al. 2004).
This incidental catch of H. kelloggi from the coast of Odisha could be due to
northward migration of the species from the Coromandel coast (i.e., coasts of
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu), where this species is abundant and is under
extensive fishing pressure (13 million individuals caught per year), despite
the ban of fishing and trading on all species of seahorses in India from 2001
(Vaidyanathan & Vincent 2021). Despite the fact that long-distance
migrations in seahorses are not well-understood (Luzzatto
et al. 2013), our record of H. kelloggi from
the coast of Odisha provides evidence that seahorses are able to migrate
long-distance (from Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar
region to Ariyapalli in Odisha coast, approx. 1,300
km), adding new information for this vulnerable species of seahorse. However,
this migration of seahorses is supported by a unique method known as rafting,
where small seahorse species attach themselves to floating substrata
(macroalgae, or plastic debris) and are dispersed by ocean currents, such as
the east Indian coastal current and north-east and south-west monsoon currents
(Teske et al. 2005; Luzzatto
et al. 2013). Mostly, this migration in Hippocampus species is preferred
by juvenile species, which coincides with our specimen of H. kelloggi being shorter than a normal adult seahorse.
This phenomenon has also been observed for H. patagonicus
in the southern Atlantic region and, H. kuda,
H. fuscus, and H. capensis
in the Indo-Pacific region (Teske et al. 2005; Luzzatto et al. 2013; Zhang & Vincent 2018).
The occurrence of the threatened
Great Seahorse along with previously recorded H. fuscus
from the Chilika lagoon calls for increase in
monitoring of fisheries bycatch from the coast of Odisha. This also calls for
trash fish monitoring from fishing activities along the eastern coast of India.
Identifying the coastal ecosystems that are potential hotspots and inhabited by
these threatened species will create a roadmap for better conservation and
management of seahorses and their associated habitats in India (Mishra & Apte 2021; Mishra & Farooq 2022).
Table 1. Morphometric
measurements of the female Hippocampus kelloggi recorded
from the Ariyapalli coast of Odisha, Bay of Bengal.
|
Variables |
No. / cm |
|
Tail ring (no.) |
38 |
|
Trunk ring (no.) |
11 |
|
Head length (cm) |
2 |
|
Standard length (cm) |
12.5 |
|
Height (cm) |
10.2 |
|
Snout length (cm) |
1 |
|
Tail length (cm) |
6.6 |
|
Trunk length (cm) |
3.4 |
For figure &
image - - click here for full PDF
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