First Report of the Banded Driftfish Psenes arafurensis (Gunther, 1889) from the Indian Coast

Driftfishes belonging to the family Nomeidae are distributed circumtropically. Among them, four species of the genus Psenes, namely Psenes arafurencis, P. cyanophrys, P. maculatus and P. pellucidus are reported from the Indian Ocean. A specimen of Psenes sp. collected from a multiday trawler, operated off the southwest coast of India was identified as Psenes arafurensis based on morphometric and meristic characteristics which were further confirmed using DNA barcoding and phylogenetic analysis. The earlier doubtful report on the species extending distribution to the Arabian Sea was in 1939 by Norman without a morphological description of the species. The study claims to be the first documentation of the species from the Arabian Sea as well as from Indian waters.