Bollettino del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona, 38, 2014 Botanica Zoologia: 193-196 Vertebral abnormalties in the oriental sole Brachirus orientals (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) (Teleostei, Hetrosomata) collected from the coasts of Muscat City on the Sea of Oman LAITH A. JAWAD Natural Sciences, Auckland War Memorial Museum Abstract A malformation of the vertebral column of the oriental sole, Brachirus orientalis, is described. he causative factors of this anomaly were discussed. Keywords: Brachirus orientalis, vertebral column, Malformation, X-ray image, Oman Introduction Morphological abnormalities in ish in general and skeletal anomalies in particular have been widely de- scribed and reviewed since the comprehensive survey of ish anomalies by Dawson (1964, 1966, 1971) (Tutman et al., 2000; Jawad, Hosie, 2007; Jawad, Öktoner, 2007; Jawad et al., 2007; Al-Mamry et al., 2010; Jawad, Kousha, 2011; Jawad, Al-Mamry, 2011, 2012a, b). Because of the high incidence in polluted wild areas, ish anomalies are used as indicators of water pollution (Bengtsson, 1979). he oriental sole family, Brachirus orientalis, Soleidae inhabits several environments in the Indo-West Paciic region such as marine, freshwater, brackish, demersal and anadromous (Reide, 2004). It is reported from the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, as well as of the west coast of India and Sri Lanka, eastward through the Malay Pen- insula and Archipelago to China and northern Australia (Desoutter, 1986). In the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman areas, it has high economic importance locally as it is considered as among the high commercial ish spe- cies (Laith Jawad, personal unpublished data). It is ex- posed to many physical and chemical factors variations, from temperature to pollution (Ali, 2010). his study describes a case of vertebral deformity in one specimen of the oriental sole, B. orientalis caught in the coastal waters of the City of Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. Materials and method One specimen of B. orientalis showing vertebral deformities (TL 120 mm, SL 100 mm, Weight 35 g) was caught by ishermen around 5-8Km away from the coasts of Muscat City, Oman on 27 th May 2012 at depth of 17m (Figure 1). he specimen was radio- graphed with ordinary X-rays to interpret any other skeletal anomaly (Figure 2a, b). Results and discussion Deformed vertebrae were noticed in the abdominal region of the vertebral column. he 9 th , 10 th and 11 th vertebrae were involved in this anomaly. For the 9 th ver- tebra, the posterior part was missing and duplication in the neural spine is noticed. he haemal spine looks normal. he 10 th vertebra lost its anterior part and both neural and haemal spines. In the 11 th vertebra, the an- terior part is lost and duplication of haemal spine is evident (Figure 2b). X-ray did not show other skeletal deformities. he abnormalities of the spinal axis can seriously affect the shape of fish and therefore decrease their commercial value. hey also afect the biological per- formances of ish even when not severe. he abnormalities of the spina1 column are always correlated to abnormalities of a wide range of verte- brae. hese abnormalities involve a) dislocation, fusion, shortening, deformation or lack of the centra, b) dislo- cation, compression, deformation, lack or extra forma- tion of the haemal and neural arches and apophysis, and c) dislocation, shortening, deformation, lack or separation of the ribs (Boglione et al., 1995; Dedi et al., 1995). he most severe is the extensive fusion of vertebrae which seriously afect the shape of the body. he phenotype can be produce by the combina- tion of genome, environment and developmental noise