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Abstract
The barracudas fish, family Sphyraenidae form a well defined group comprising about 21 species belonging to one genus. They are widely distributed in tropical and temperate waters of the world.
S. chrysotaenia, S. flavicauda, S. sphyraena and S. viridensis are the only representatives of the family Sphyraenidae in the Egyptian Mediterranean waters. The former two species have recently immigrated through the Suez Canal as well as S. flavicauda is firstly recorded in the present study. S. sphyraena is the Mediterranean species and the last species is of Atlantic origin.
Members of family Sphyraenidae are pelagic. They are caught by trawl, purse-seines, gill, trammel, longlines and beach-seines nets. Although the barracudas fish constitutes 2.6% of the total catch of Egyptian Mediterranean waters, they are economically important.
The present study deals with biology (systematics, biometrics, growth, reproduction & feeding) of the barracudas fish species S. chrysotaenia, S. flavicauda, S. sphyraena and S. viridensis from the Egyptian Mediterranean waters. In addition, the analysis of commercial catches of barracudas fish was performed including species composition, size & age composition, survival, mortality, exploitation ratio, yield per recruit and biomass. This study was carried out throughout the period from March 1998 to February 1999.
Analysis of morphometric regressions of the four Sphyraena species indicate that S. sphyraena and S. viridensis are more related species as well as S. chrysotaenia and S. flavicauda and confusion may cause in the identification of these species since the comparisons between S. sphyraena and S. viridensis show non-significant differences in 7 morphometric characters out of 24 while between S. chrysotaenia and S. flavicauda 6 characters