SOME POST-LARVAL AND JUVENILE STAGES OF THE INDIAN MACKEREL, RASTRELLIGER KANAGURTA (CUVIER), WITH NOTES ON THE CHANGES IN BODY FORM

Abstract

The Indian mackerel, Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier), belonging to the family
Scombridae, is one of the commercially important food fishes of India and
a few other countries bordering the Indo-Pacific. The life history of this species
has not been fully investigated so far.
The earliest description of a Rastrelliger egg is by Delsman(1926) from the
Java Sea. Subsequently, Delsman (1931) expressed doubts about the .correctness
of his earlier identification. Manacop (1956) has described, from the Philippine
waters, two specimens of R. chrysozonus measuring 26 mm and 48 mm in length.
Devanesen and John (1940), Balakrishnan (1957) and Kuthalingam (1956) have
recorded the occurrence of eggs and larvae of R. kanagurta from the Indian waters.
Jones and Kumaran (1964) have given figures of two juveniles measuring 34 mm
and 65 mm in length. A single larva measuring 9.3 mm collected from the
Andaman Sea during Vityaz Expedition has been described by Gorbunova (1963).
The eggs and larvae of Rastrelliger, collected from the Gulf of Thailand, have
been described by Boonprakob (1962, 1965) and the Rastrelliger larvae collected
from the same area during the Naga Expedition have been described by Matsui(1963).
In this paper a series of early stages of the Indian mackerel is
presented. However, this does not include the pro-larvae reported earlier {vide
Balakrishnan, 1957) as the material is not available now.