On a young sea cow killed at Periapatnam, Gulf of Mannar

A young dugong was killed by the fishermen of Periapatnam in the inshore waters of Gulf of Mannar (depth 2 m, distance from the shore 2 km) near periapatnam. It weighed about 60 kg and had a total length of 155 cm. Meat was sold at Rs. 30.00 per kg in Periapatnam. The Dugong measuring 155 cm killed at Periapatnam, would have taken about five and a half years to attain that size

A penaeid prawn with an abnormal telson

Reported instances' of abnormalities in fishes are common 1-6, but in prawn it is limited, Deshmukh and Kuber' have reported a case of double rostrum in Parapenaeopsis styli/era. Apart from this there is no other published work on abnormalities in P. styli/era, The present note deals Witll the abnormal telson

Application of Sharp- and Diffuse-Front Models for Predicting Mass Gain and Saturation in Fibrous Wicks

Wicking as imbibitional flow of a liquid driven by capillary pressure has been an important topic in different areas from simple applications like air refreshers and lightening torches to high-tech one such as Propellant Management Devices (PMD)[1, 2]. In this research, wicking of a liquid into porous wicks made parallel fibers is investigated. In the first step, we developed a model for predicting the height of liquid front during the wicking process as a function of time using Darcy’s law based on the assumption of single-phase flow behind a clear sharp front. Then the theoretically developed model was evaluated by performing mass-gain experiments where it revealed satisfying agreement for the majority of tested wicks. However, the model failed to account for partial saturations in the wicks. Therefore, we tried Richard’s equation to predict liquid saturation. The adapted Richard’s equation for our specific porous wicks is solved numerically in 2-D using COMSOL and analytically in 1-D using Mathematica where we treated the porous wicks as transversely-isotropic porous media. We determined capillary pressure and relative permeability directly from pore-scale simulations in wick microstructure using GeoDict. Also, in order to evaluate the numerical and analytical results for Richard’s equation, we used a new liquid-N2 based freezing technique to determine the saturation level along the wick length experimentally. After including the gravity effect, good agreements between the numerical/analytical predictions and experimental results were achieved in saturation distributions

Observations on the paddy-field prawn filtration of Kerala, India

Experiments were conducted to determine whether culture methods could be advantageously introduced into the existing prawn filtration practices in the paddy fields of Kerala, on the southwest coast of India. The pattern of the fishery is changing, with the demand for small prawns decreasing and that for large prams increasing

Incidential catch of sea turtles in India

Sea turtles are found all along the coast of India including the Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Five species inhabit the Indian waters. All the species are capable of taking long distance migration

Report on a whale shark Rhincodon typus (Smith) caught in shore-seine from the Palk Bay

The present report is on the capture of a live female whale shark on 25.7.1989 from the Palk Bay in a shore-seine [Karavalai) operated at Pirappanvalasai, near Mandapam

On a leather back turtle Dermochelys coriacea landed at Rameswaram

A leather back turtle was washed ashore on 10-3- 1991 about 2 km from the Rameswaram temple, Ramnad District, Tamil Nadu. Local enquiries revealed that it was caught on 7-3-1991 at 0200 hrs by a mechanised boat which operated shrimp trawl net in 15 m depth about 15 km southeast of Rameswaram

On the stranding of sperm whales at Nagapattinam,Tamil nadu coast

A whale baby female sperm whale, Physeter macrocephakis Linnaeus measuring 3.71 m and weighing about 700 kg was stranded on18th December, 1988 at Samnathanpettai near Nagapattinam . Another sperm whale was found dead and washed ashore at Vizhunthamavadi near Nagapattinam on 18th January, 1991. The stranded sperm whale was an young female of 9.70 m weighing about 5 tonnes and estimated to be around five years old

Accidental catch of the Spinner Dolphin from Gulf of Mannar, Mandapam

Among the marine mammals, Dolphins are lepresented by four spacies along the Indian coasts. Of these, the accidental catch/strauding of three common spjcies namely Dolphinus delphis, Tursiops aduncus and Sousa chinensis have already been reported from the Mandapam area. The present study report the occurrence of the species Stenella longirostris (Spinner dolphin)from Mandapam in Gulf of Mannar

Report On A Sperm Whale Physeter Macrocephalus Linnaeus Stranded Along The Gulf Of Mannar Coast

The sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus although is widely distributed in the world oceans, reports on its stranding along the Indian coasts are few. The following is a report on a sperm whale stranded at Hare Island, Gulf of Manna