Cephalopods have good export demand,

therefore it is the second most sought

commodity next to prawns by trawl operators.

Octopus, popularly known as “devil fish” were earlier

discarded as it did not fetch any price, but in recent

years, these are being exploited in commercial

quantities. The major species of octopus which

contributed to the world fishery, come under the

genera Octopus, Cistopus and Eledone

Khan, Mohammad Zafar

Sundaram, Sujit

CMFRI Digital Repository

16 Marine Fisheries Information Service T&E Ser., No. 200, 2009Record of Octopus membranaceusQuoy and Gaimard, 1832in Maharashtra watersSujit Sundaram and Mohammad Zafar KhanMumbai Research Centre of CMFRI, MumbaiC ephalopods have good export demand,therefore it is the second most soughtcommodity next to prawns by trawl operators.Octopus, popularly known as “devil fish” were earlierdiscarded as it did not fetch any price, but in recentyears, these are being exploited in commercialquantities. The major species of octopus whichcontributed to the world fishery, come under thegenera Octopus, Cistopus and Eledone. Octopus inthe continental shelf and oceanic region are caughtmainly as by-catch in the bottom trawl.Due to the growing demand for octopus in theinternational market, octopus fishery is catching upin the north-west region, especially alongMaharashtra coast. The main fish landing centresfor octopus at Mumabi are New Ferry Wharf,Sassoon Docks and Versova. Cephalopods formabout 10.5% in trawl landings off Maharashtra withoctopus dominated by the species Cistopus indicuscontributing 7.1% towards the cephalopod catch.With the increased exploitation and expansion offishing grounds, new records of cephalopods arereported from various places all along the Indiancoast. Thirty eight species of octopods belonging tothe family Octopodidae, Thermoctopodidae andArgonautidae abound the Indian seas includingAndaman and Lakshadweep.A new entrant to the octopus fishery is Octopusmembranaceus Quoy and Gaimard, 1832 at NewFerry Wharf, Maharashtra. The species is present inthe fishery during December - February. This speciesis commonly known as ‘webfoot octopus’ and locallyall octopuses are known as ‘jeevrae makul’. Theyare known as ‘jidako’ in Japan, where it supports aminor fishery and in China they are called as ‘foureyed bird’. The mantle length of the species landedat New Ferry Wharf ranged from 50-80 mm. Thedepth of operation was about 30-40 m at 70-80 kmoff north-west coast. The occurrence ofO. membranaceus is reported for the first time fromthis region.Some of the important distinguishing charactersof O. membranaceus are a saccular to elongatemantle with small, close-set tubercles over head,mantle and arms. Two cirri or warts observed overeach eye, arms moderately long, robust and the weblow. The right arm III is hectacotylised in males. Lingulis slender and long with 4 to 6% of arm length. Themost important identification character is thepresence of a conspicuous dark ringed ocellus onthe web base of arm II, antero-ventral to the eyes.O. membranaceus is a benthic shallow waterspecies occurring down to about 60 m depth. It showsa strong cryptic behaviour and usually hides in holestime can be expected to reduce the fuel consumptionper trip of the crafts. In the PFZ Validation ProjectReview Meeting, held at INCOIS, Hyderabad duringApril 2007, it was reported that in Kerala, a reductionin searching time to an extent of 60-70% for oilsardines and 30-40% for mackerels was observedafter following the PFZ advisories. The validationexperiments also indicated that the catches in PFZarea gave more CPUE and net profit compared tothe results of the operation in non-PFZ (INCOIS,2007). Thus the PFZ information can be utilized toreduce the searching time as well as cost of fuel.These recommendations based on the economicparameters should also be viewed from the stockassessment side also so that an appropriate fisherymanagement measure can be formulated.Octopus membranaceusQuoy and Gaimard, 183217Marine Fisheries Information Service T&E Ser., No. 200, 2009on flat bottoms. The spawning season extends fromDecember to February. It is an Indo-Pacific speciesextending from the Indian Ocean to Japan, China,Philippines and southward to Australia.The major octopus species landed in Kerala isO. membranaceous contributing about 82% towardsthe octopus catch. There seems to be no referenceabout this species from Maharashtra waters. Thelength range of the species landed at Cochin is 20to 90 mm in mantle length. According to FAO, themaximum mantle length of the species is 80 mm andmaximum total length is 300 mm in Mumbai waters,the size range of this species is smaller rangingbetween 30 and 80 mm and the landingscomparatively of lesser magnitude.Separate catch statistics are not available for thisspecies. Nine specimens were analysed for their gutcontents. Majority of the gut was empty and food ifpresent could not be identified  as they were in finelymacerated condition. In general, octopuses that arelanded are taken to the processing unit within 4-6 h,where they are degutted and processed. The costof octopus (Cistopus indicus) at Mumbai in 1999 wasRs 10/- per kg which has now increased to Rs. 60/-per kg at the landing centre. But O. membranaceousfetches a lower price due to to its smaller size,seasonal occurrence and less demand.Moontail bullseye, Priacanthus hamrur has beenforming a part of the trawl fishery off Mangalore,caught from a depth beyond 100 m ever sincedeepsea trawling started off the coast. This is not apreferred edible species in Karnataka and was not aspecies considered for targeted fishery. In 2005 and2006, the bullseye landing was forming 1.48% and1.31% of the trawl landing of Mangalore FisheriesHarbour, with 907 t and 884 t respectively. In 2007,the landing of the species increased almost nearlyten times of that of previous year (7,946 t) forming10.8% of the total trawl landings. Last quarter of theyear recorded the heaviest landing of the speciesand during October-December, 5,750 t were landed(Fig. 1).It was understood that sudden increase in landingof this species was mainly due to the targeted fisheryby the trawlers for the species due to heavy marketdemand from processing industries. The species istargeted for surumi preparation and is procured bythe surumi plants @ Rs. 8/kg. This sudden rise indemand for the species is also an after effect ofreduction in the availability of threadfin breams ofrequired size, which is considered as the priorityspecies for surumi preparation which was procuredby the industry @ Rs. 12/kg on an average. ThreadfinFig. 1. Landings of Priacanthus hamrur during2006-’07 at Mangalore Fisheries HarbourA view of transportaton of bullseye fromMangalore Fisheries HarbourTargeted trawl fishery for moontailbullseye, Priacanthus hamruroff Mangalore for surumi productionA. P. Dineshbabu, S. Kemparajuand G. SampathkumarMangalore Research Centre of CMFRI, Mangalore0.0100 0.0200 0.0300 0.0Jan, 2005FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecJan, 2006FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecJan, 2007FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecLandingds (t)0.005.0010.0015.0020.0025.0030.00Percentage in total landingsPriacanthus catchPercentage in total catchlll i i

Record of Octopus membranaceus Quoy and Gaimard, 1832 in Maharashtra waters

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