A distributional record of the lattice soldierfishes, Myripristis violacea Bleeker, 1851 and Myripristis hexagona Lacepede, 1802 (Actinopterygii: holocentriformes: Holocentridae) from Lakshadweep Archipelago, West Coast of India

• Published in: Thalassas : revista de ciencias del mar 2022-10, Vol.38 (2), p.1253-1259
• Main Authors: Kar, Chinmay, Shabeena, K. S., Mohammednowshad, B., Idreesbabu, K. K., Mol, V. P. Limna, Sureshkumar, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Archipelagoes; Coastal Sciences; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Fish; Fish & Wildlife Biology & Management; Fishing; Freshwater & Marine Ecology; Geographical distribution; Holocentridae; Laboratories; Lagoons; Marine & Freshwater Sciences; Marine fishes; Morphology; Myripristis hexagona; Myripristis violacea; New records; Nucleotide sequence; Oceanography; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Surveying
• ISSN: 0212-5919; 2366-1674
• DOI: 10.1007/s41208-022-00456-y

The present report is based on one male specimen of lattice soldierfishes, Myripristis violacea Bleeker, 1851 and one Myripristis hexagona (Lacepede, 1802) collected from the Amini lagoon (11.1142° N, 72.7204° E) of Lakshadweep. The lattice soldierfish, Myripristis violacea , and Myripristis hexagona are recorded for the first time from Lakshadweep Islands. The species showed a circumglobal distribution with a gap from the Bay of Bengal to the Western Indian Ocean. The present report fills a wide gap in the distributional record of the species. The specimens collected during the present survey match the original morphological description and the existing CO1 sequence deposited in GenBank. The present article provides morphological features, distributional records, and phylogenetic affinity of the species to elucidate its occurrence along the coast of Lakshadweep in light of its ecology.