Occurrence of Pacific Gregory, Stegastes fasciolatus (family Pomacentridae) off Visakhapatnam, east coast of India pralaya ranjan behera, m. menon and ghosh shubhadeep ghosh Visakhapatnam Regional Centre of Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Visakhapatnam, India Two specimens of Stegastes fasciolatus of total length 110.1 mm and 112.2 mm were collected from gillnet at Visakhapatnam fishing harbour, north-east coast of India on 5 January 2013. The morphometric and meristic characters of the recorded speci- mens are described and discussed. Keywords: first record, Pacific Gregory, range extension, Visakhapatnam, India Submitted 8 April 2014; accepted 12 October 2014 INTRODUCTION Damselfish of the family Pomacentridae are common circum- global inhabitants of rock and coral reefs (Allen, 1991). There are 29 genera (Froese & Pauly, 2014) and 394 valid species in the family, distributed mainly on reefs of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, but also well represented in Atlantic marine waters and over the past decade there were 27 new descriptions of pomacentrids from world oceans (Eschmayer & Fong, 2014). The genus Stegastes which includes 37 species is the third largest after the genera Pomacentrus and Chromis. The genus Stegastes is morphologically conservative and its classi- fication is highly dependent upon colour patterns (Allen, 1991). The species of this genus are bottom-dwelling, territor- ial damselfish, generally not exceeding a total length of 14 cm. Stegastes fasciolatus is an omnivorous damselfish that feeds primarily on benthic filamentous algae (Losey, 1982). It is highly aggressive towards both conspecifics and heterospeci- fics (Rasa, 1969; Losey, 1982). It defends both for food and space within its territory (Losey, 1982; Chiou, 1984). Because of this strong territoriality, its presence is an import- ant factor in determining the distribution and abundance of potential competitors, including not only fish but other animals (Hourigan, 1986). The species was first described as Pomacentrus fasciolatus by Ogilby (1889) based on a specimen collected from Lord Howe Island, Australia. The validity of P. fasciolatus was confirmed based on scientific evidence for its separate genetic status and this fish was placed under a separ- ate genus Stegastes (Emery & Allen, 1980). Allen & Emery (1985) have reported the occurrence of S. fasciolatus from the Andaman Islands and Randall & Anderson (1993) have reported its occurrence from the Maldive Islands. Historically, more than four decades ago, S. fasciolatus was also reported from the Gulf of Mannar of the south-east coast of India (Murthy, 1969), but there are no such recent reports. Moreover, the report from the Gulf of Mannar had no morphometric and meristic details of the specimen landed. Hence this is the first description of the species from the east coast of India. MATERIALS AND METHODS On 5 January 2013, two specimens (Figure 1) were collected from a gillnet operated at a depth of 50 to 60 m (17848 ′ 04.63 ′′ N 83841 ′ 12.63 ′′ E) about 22 km north of Visakhapatnam fishing harbour (Figure 3). The specimen was identified as Stegastes fasciolatus based on diagnostic characters described by Allen (1986). Measurements were taken with digital Vernier calliper to the nearest 0.1 mm and expressed as percentage of total length. Morphometric and meristic data of the recorded species were compared with type specimens (Table 2). The identified specimen was initial- ly fixed in 10% formaldehyde and later preserved in 70% Fig. 1. Pacific Gregory, Stegastes fasciolatus (110.1 mm total length). Corresponding author: P.R. Behera Email: beherapralaya213@gmail.com 1 Marine Biodiversity Records, page 1 of 4. # Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 2014 doi:10.1017/S175526721400102X; Vol. 7; e122; 2014 Published online