First record of striated fusilier Caesio striata (Teleostei: Caesionidae), from Indian waters k. kannan 1 , sajan john 2 , j.a. jhonson 3 , p.u. zacharia 4 and k.k. joshi 4 1 Tuticorin Research Center (TRC), Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, (CMFRI), South Beach Road (near Rochi Park) Tuticorin-628 001, Tamil Nadu, India, 2 Dakshin Foundation, 88/3, Sahakaranagar ‘A’ Block, Bangalore, India, 560 092, 3 Wildife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun-248001, India, 4 Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), Post Box 1603, Ernakulam North PO, Kochi 682018, Kerala, India The striated fusilier Caesio striata, is recorded for the first time in Indian waters. A single specimen was caught in the Gulf of Mannar and landed at Tuticorin fisheries harbour in September 2010. Keywords: striated fusilier, Caesio striata, Gulf of Mannar, Tuticorin, by-catch Submitted 1 November 2012; accepted 14 July 2013 INTRODUCTION Fusiliers (family Caesionidae) comprise a group of marine perciforms distributed in the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean, and were first described by Johnson (1980) based on extensive osteological research. It has two sub-families, four genera, six subgenera, and 21 species. Initially, there were 15 species listed under this family (Johnson, 1980) and six more species were later added by Carpenter (1987). Fusiliers are primarily reef inhabiting, planktivorous and schooling fish. Caesio striata Ru ¨ppell, 1830, commonly known as ‘striated fusiliers’ has a discontinuous distribution. According to Carpenter (1988), its distribution was very much limited to the Red Sea, but there is now more information about its dis- tribution elsewhere. In the Indian Ocean it is known from western Madagascar (Gillibrand et al., 2007), Glorieuses Archipelago (Durville et al., 2003) and the Seychelles (Anon., 2012), although it has not been reported from the adjacent island territories of Re ´union (Letourneur et al., 2004) and Mauritius (Baissac, 1990). Further eastwards, in the northern Pacific Ocean, C. striata is known from Vietnam (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2006) and the Philippines (Ganaden & Lavapie-Gonzales, 1999). However, C. striata has not been reported from the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. MATERIALS AND METHODS On 16 September 2010, a single specimen of Caesio striata (Figure 1) weighing approximately 200 g, was collected from Tuticorin fisheries harbour (south-east coast of India), from the by-catch landed by a motorized fishing vessel using a drift gill-net (net length 5000 m; net height 14 m). The speci- men was caught approximately 55 km north-east of Tuticorin harbour (9800 ′ 03.83 ′′ N and 78837 ′ 00.07 ′′ E) in the Gulf of Mannar at a depth of 50–80 m (Figure 2). The specimen was identified as a striated fusilier, Caesio striata based on the morphometric and meristic characters described by Carpenter (1988). This is the first record of Caesio striata from Indian waters and a new distribution record for the species outside its known geographical range (Figure 3). Measurements were taken to the nearest mm using a digital caliper according to Masuda et al. (1984). Morphometric and meristic characters are shown in Table 1. In the following section, a brief morphological description of the specimens collected is provided. RESULTS systematics Kingdom ANIMALIA Phylum CHORDATA Class ACTINOPTERYGII Order PERCIFORMES Family CAESIONIDAE Genus Caesio Species Caesio striata (Ru ¨ppell, 1830) description Body fusiform, elongate and moderately compressed. Post-maxillary process single and posterior end of maxilla Fig. 1. Lateral view of the Caesio striata captured from the Gulf of Mannar. Corresponding author: K. Kannan Email: kanna.k84@gmail.com 1 Marine Biodiversity Records, page 1 of 3. # Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 2013 doi:10.1017/S175526721300081X; Vol. 6; e106; 2013 Published online