Food of the Indian mackerel,udRastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier)udtaken by drift-nets in the Arabian seaudoff Vizhingam, South Kerala

摘要

Being one of the most important neritic pelagic specie:., the Indian mackerel,udRastrelUger kanagurta (Cuvier), has been, the object of investigations by manyudfishery biologists. On the West Coast of India, while this species supportsuda rich commercial fishery, its distribution on the East Coast is only of biologicaludinterest. Most of the earlier works (Devanesan and John, 1940;udDevanesan, 1942; John and Menon, 1942 and Chidambaram, 1944) areudof brief notes dealing with the nature of food of the mackerel on the WestudCoast of India. In recent years, Chidambaram et al. (1952) have studied inuddetail the fat variations, sizo composition, maturity and food habits of theudmackerel. Bhimachar and George (1952) have given a detailed account ofudthe seasonal fluctuations in the food of this species from Calicut. Mentionudshould be made of the comprehensive works of Pradhan (1956) and Sekharanud(1958) on the fishery and certain biological aspscts of the mackerel from theudKonkan Coast. Our knowledge on the biology of this species from the EastudCoast of India is confined to the recent works of Kuthalingam (1956) fromudMadras, Rao and Rao (1957) and Rao (1962) from Waltair.