New species of Moray eel discovered off Cuddalore coast named after Tamil Nadu

Category : Science and Tech Published on: March 28 2023

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Researchers have discovered a new species of Moray eel at the Mudasalodai fish landing centre off the Cuddalore coast.
The species has been named after Tamil Nadu as Gymnothorax tamilnaduensis with common name as Tamil Nadu brown moray.
This is the first ever record of this genus, Gymnothorax, collected through an exploration survey conducted along the coastal waters of Cuddalore district, particularly, Parangipettai and Mudasalodai fish landing centres by Mr. Kodeswaran and Kantharajan.
The new species are notably different from its known Indian water congeners (organisms of the same genus) by having series of lines of small dark spots present on the head and a single line of black spots on the mid-line of the body.
The holotype of this new species has also been deposited at the National Fish Museum and repository of ICAR-NBFGR, Lucknow.
The name of the species has been registered in ZooBank, the online registration system for the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).