New Distributional Records for Cardinalfishes (Perciformes/ Apogonidae) from North East Arabian Sea, Western Indian Ocean Rajan Kumar 1 & A. P. Dineshbabu 1 & Ashok Kumar Jaiswar 2 & Latha Shenoy 2 & Annam Pavan Kumar 2 & Shikha Rahangdale 1 & Vinaykumar Vase 1 & Divu Damodaran 1 Received: 11 October 2018 /Revised: 16 March 2019 / # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 Abstract Fishes of family Apogonidae popularly known as cardinalfishes are of high ecological importance owing to its trophic role. Though the presence of apogonids from the coastal waters of the northeastern Arabian sea are reflected in diets of predatory fishes of the region and bycatch of trawls, limited reports are available on species composition. Three species namely Apogonichthyoides pseudotaeniatus (Gon, 1986), Jaydia queketti (Gilchrist, 1903) and Jaydia lineata (Temmink & Schlegal, 1842) have been reported for the first time from the region, adding to the apogonids diversity of the region. Ostorhinchus fasciatus (White, 1790) is also reported for the first time from the coastal waters of Gujarat. Morphometric assessment of the four species revealed several discriminating attributes capable of separating the species from each other. Keywords North east Arabian Sea . Gujarat . Apogonids . Trawl . Bycatch Introduction Fishes of family Apogonidae popularly known as cardinal fishes are small percoid fishes mostly of size less than 120 mm. They are basically coastal residents of coral, rocky reefs and adjacent hab- itats. They are among the few groups of marine fishes exhibiting oral egg brooding by males. The members of the family Apogonidae are characterized by moderately compressed, oval to elongate body with large prominent eyes comparable to snout length in size. They possess double-edged pre-opercle and have two dorsal fins with the first one having VI-VIII spines. The second dorsal fin has I spine and 8–14 soft rays. Anal fin of the species has two rigid spines and 8–18 soft rays (Gon 1986 and Allen 1999). The family enjoys wide distribution across temper- ate and tropical coastal waters of Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. The family is represented by 352 extant species belong- ing to 41 genera globally (Froese and Pauly 2018). As many as 65 species belonging to 17 genera have been recorded from Indian waters (Saravanan et al. 2017) but most of them have been either recorded from reef ecosystem of Gulf of Mannar, Lakshadweep and Andaman and the Nicobar Islands or limited to east coast of India (Bay of Bengal) and southwest coast of India (Jones and Kumaran 1980; Dutt and Rao 1980; Suresh 2007; Hashim et al. 2012; Rajan et al. 2013; Muddulakrishna et al. 2015; Ranjith et al. 2016a, b; Joshi et al. 2016; Saravanan et al. 2017). The role of apogonids in the trophic structure is believed to be much higher than their relative abundance especially in reef systems (Marnane 2001). The ecological significance of the group warrants regions wise studies on diversity and abundance, to begin with in order to explore its ecological role in a specific system. The presence of apogonids from the area is regularly reflected in previous reports specially in context of diet compo- sition of bottom-dwelling predatory fishes or bycatch of trawl fishery (Zynudheen et al. 2004; Metar et al. 2005; Saker et al. 2013; Mali et al. 2017; Dash et al. 2018). The current investi- gation on the trawl Low valued Bycatch (LVB) diversity along Gujarat coast reveal the presence of four species of apogonids in the region namely Apogonichthyoides pseudotaeniatus (Gon, 1986), Jaydia queketti (Gilchrist, 1903); Jaydia lineata (Temmink & Schlegal, 1842) and Ostorhinchus fasciatus (White, 1790). The present study not only ascertains the pres- ence of the species in the region but also help field enumerators in prompt reporting of the species. * Rajan Kumar rajan.kumar@icar.gov.in 1 Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi 682018, India 2 Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai 400061, India Thalassas: An International Journal of Marine Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s41208-019-00132-8