Distribution of Marine Puffer and Porcupinefishes (Order: Tetraodontiformes) from Tamil Nadu Coast, Southern India

The marine pufferfishes (Family: Tetraodontidae) and porcupinefishes (Family: Diodontidae) were collected from major fish landing centres viz. Royapuram (station I), Cuddalore (station II), Nagapattinam (station III), Mandapam (station IV) and Kanyakumari (station V) along the Tamil Nadu coast, Southeast coast of India. Monthly sample collections were carried out for a period of 1 year from August 2014 to July 2015 from these five major fish landing centres. Overall, 12,112 fishes were collected which belongs to 15 species, 9 genera and two families Tetraodontidae and Diodontidae under the order Tetraodontiformes. It was also found that all the 15 species were not available in all the five stations. The collected 15 species were identified as Arothron immaculatus , A. reticularis , A. hispidus , A. stellatus , Arothron sp., Lagocephalus guentheri , L. sceleratus , L. lunaris , Takifugu oblongus , Torquigener brevipinnis , Chelonodon patoca , Canthigaster solandri , Diodon holocanthus , cyclichthys orbicularis and Chilomycterus reticulatus . The maximum distribution of pufferfishes was observed in Mandapam followed by Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Royapuram and Kanyakumari. The present study clearly showed that 15 species of pufferfishes and porcupinefishes were reported which includes 6 additional distribution records as compared with previous literature. The study also presented the distributional updates of pufferfishes and porcupinefishes along with taxonomic features and figures for identification of species.