LENGTH WEIGHT RELATIONSHIP, CONDITION FACTOR AND MORPHOMETRY OF FLAT HEAD GREY MULLET Mugil cephalus (LINNAEUS, 1758) FROM PULICAT LAKE, TIRUVALLUR DISTRICT, TAMIL NADU
Fishes of the family Mugilidae are commonly known as "mullets" or "grey mullets". This family includes 18 genera and 81 species (Vaitheeswarna et al., 2016). During 2017 - 18 marine fish landings were estimated by CMFRI is 3.88 million tonnes, which is 6.9% more than the preceding year 2016. ICAR - CMFRI reported estimated mullets landings 7939 tonnes in India 2017.
Data collected from commercial landings off Pulicat Lake, Tiruvallur District, Tamil Nadu during 2016. A total of 415 specimens including 174 females and 241 males were collected and their standard length and weight measurements were taken in mm and gm respectively. The standard length of males ranged from 70 to 165 mm and females from 100 to 200 mm and.
For male, the slope value (b) was estimated to be 2.7638 and the same was 2.7624 for female and 2.7653 for combined sexes. The equation of W = 0.00038 L2.7638 and W = 0.00040 L2.7624 were established for male and female respectively. The relationship revealed that the value of ''b'' was considerably close to 3, which might be due to the rotund, strongly streamlined body. The Regression Coefficient for combined sexes was estimated to be 0.9068. The average condition factor value for combined sexes was found to be 1.0155 with a range from 0.5249 to 1.5854 revealing that overall wellbeing of the grey mullets in the study area is satisfactory.
The pooled data on 19 morphometric characteristics were analyzed using factor analysis. Out of three mullet fish species Mugil cephalus were significantly different from Valamugil sp and Lizasp and found that, Mugil cephalus showed 100 % correctly classified sample found from classification of matrix.
