'Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi'
Abstract
Ruvettus pretiosus belonging to the Family
Gempylidae of perciform fishes is closely related to
Scombridae. Gempylidae fishes are commonly called
as snake mackerels or escolars and this family has
16 genus and 24 valid species. R. pretiosus is one
of the large sized fishes with the maximum record of
300 cm total length (Nakamura and Parin, 1993). It
is bentho-pelagic, reported to be distributed along
the tropical and temperate seas of the world
