A new record of right eyed deep-sea flat fish Poecilopsetta colorata Gunther, 1880 (Pleuronectiformes: Pleuronectidae) from the Arabian Sea

Abstract

Here, the new record of deep-sea flat fish Poecilopsetta colorata Gunther, 1880 from Arabian Sea along the Indian coast is reported. The four individual specimens were collected from Sakthikulangara fish landing center (fishing off Kollam 8°56'60.78" N; 76°32'34.27" E) obtained from deep-sea bottom trawlers between 200 and 300 m depth along the southwest coast of India in February 2019 and the voucher specimen is deposited in the Marine Biodiversity Referral Museum at Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. The genus Poecilopsetta Günther, 1880 is reported to have moderate diversity with 15 species inhabiting the deepsea waters. The intraspecies genetic distance in the COI gene of P. colorata retrieved from NCBI revealed 0.0 – 1.4 %; while interspecies distance ranged from 1.7 to 9.6 %.