Chennai: Researchers from the Marine Biology Regional Centre of Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Chennai, have discovered two new species of marine fish (fish that live in saltwater environments, including oceans, seas, and coral reefs): a sandperch and an electric ray.The sandperch is a benthic, or bottom-dwelling, fish that is normally found over sand or rubble substrates in shallow seas. It was caught incidentally by a trawler operating in the Bay of Bengal. Ecologically, sandperches function as small predators feeding on crustaceans, polychaetes and juvenile fishes. In this way, they contribute to trophic demersal ecosystems, a seafloor-based food web where energy and nutrients move between the seabed and the water column.K K Bineesh, one of the lead researchers and Scientist E at ZSI’s Marine Biology Regional Centre, Chennai, said the species is widely distributed along the east coast, including Chennai.The second discovery is a species of electric ray, found in deep waters off the south-eastern Arabian Sea. The species is also known to be found in the north-eastern Arabian Sea. The team of researchers collected four specimens from a commercial trawler, which was fishing at a depth between 30m and 80m in the Bay of Bengal, off the Chennai coast, Digha in Odisha, Visakhapattanam, and off Kakinada in the Bay of Bengal.Discovery of the new species from the Bay of Bengal demonstrates that the diversity of demersal fish (fish that live and feed on or near the bottom of seas or lakes) of the eastern continental shelf of India remains insufficiently explored. A total of 17 species of sandperches have been reported from Indian waters so far, although additional surveys will probably reveal further undescribed taxa.
