Volume 26, Issue 77, January - June, 2025

A new species of eight-gilled hagfish (Myxinidae: Eptatretus) off Kerala, Western Indian Ocean

Ida Elizabeth George¹, Bineesh KK^1♦, Agnita Sharon E², Ranjana Bhaskar², Hashim M³, Dhriti banerjee⁴

¹Zoological Survey of India, Marine Biology Regional Centre, 130 Santhome High Road, Chennai-600028, India
²Zoological Survey of India, Southern Regional Centre, 130 Santhome High Road, Chennai-600028, India
³Centre for Marine Living Resources & Ecology (CMLRE), ATAL Bhavan, Puthuvype South, Ochanthuruthu PO, Kochi, Kerala, India
⁴Zoological Survey of India, Prani Vigyan Bhawan, M-Block, New Alipore Kolkata-700053, India

^♦Corresponding Author
Zoological Survey of India, Marine Biology Regional Centre, 130 Santhome High Road, Chennai-600028, India

ABSTRACT

This paper describes Eptatretus sunilii Ida & Bineesh, a new hagfish species from the west coast of India. The specimens were caught as bycatch by a deep-sea shrimp trawler operated at a depth of 400-600 m and were landed at Sakthikulangara Fisheries Harbour, Kollam, Kerala. The fish differs from most other Eptatretus Cloquet 1819 by having eight pairs of gill pouches and eight numbers of gill apertures, 3/2 multi-cusp teeth, and 68 -78 total slime pores. Though appears to be similar to Eptatretus indrambaryai Wongratana, (1983), Eptatretus octatrema Barnard (1923), Eptatretus okinoseanus Dean, (1904), and Eptatretus gomoni Mincarone and Fernholm, (2010) in having the same number of gill apertures and 3/2 multi-cusp teeth, it differs from these species by having fewer slime pores (68-78), a total cusp count of 42, and longer branchial length (10.31-12.22 % TL), and formed a distinct clade in the ML phylogenetic tree.

Keywords: Hagfish, Western Indian Ocean, Molecular Taxonomy, Myxinidae, Eptatretus sunilii.

Species, 2025, 26(77), e2s1751

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi.v26i77.e2s1751

Published: 03 January 2025