Ribbonfishes are typical inmates of pelagic waters of the world oceans and it is a cosmopolitan species (Parin, 1968., 1988; Nakamura and Parin, 1993). It is a slim, commercially important marine species of Pakistan. Ribbonfish are spread in the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic areas as well as throughout the Indian coast with plenty in the northwest and central east coasts (Nair and Prakasan, 2003). They belong to the family Trichiuridae and are represented in Pakistani waters by two species namely, Trichiurus lepturus, and Lepturacanthus savala .These species are found all over the year but the abundant species in Pakistan is T. lepturus (Bianchi, 1985)

Baloch, A.J.

Farooq, S.

Hameed, A.

Jahangir, S.

Malik, A.

Muhammad, A.A.

Rabbaniha, M.

Aquatic Commons

Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences                            16(2) 815-821                                                 2017 
 
 
Current fishery status of ribbonfish Trichiurus lepturus 
Linnaeus, 1758) (Trichiuridae) from Makran coast (northeast 
Arabian Sea) 
 
Muhammad A.A.1, 2; Farooq S.3*; Rabbaniha M.4; Jahangir S.1; Malik A.1;  
Hameed A.1, Baloch A.J.5 
 
Received: February 2017                    Accepted: April 2017 
 
 
1-Center of Excellence in Marine Biology, University of Karachi-75270, Karachi, Pakistan 
2-Coastal Development and Fisheries Department, Government of Balochistan. 
3-Marine Science Division, Department of Zoology, University of Karachi-75270, Karachi, 
Pakistan 
4-Iranian Fisheries Science Research Institute (IFSRI), Agricultural Research, Education and 
Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran, Iran.  
5-National Institute of Oceanography, Gwader, Balochistan 
*Corresponding author's Email: sfarooqu@uok.edu.pk 
 
 
Keywords: Length-weight relationship, Ribbon fish, Fishery 
 
 
Introduction 
Ribbonfishes are typical inmates of 
pelagic waters of the world oceans and 
it is a cosmopolitan species (Parin, 
1968., 1988; Nakamura and Parin, 
1993). It is a slim, commercially 
important marine species of Pakistan. 
Ribbonfish are spread in the Indo-
Pacific and Atlantic areas as well as 
throughout the Indian coast with plenty 
in the northwest and central east coasts 
(Nair and Prakasan, 2003). They belong 
to the family Trichiuridae and are 
represented in Pakistani waters by two 
species namely, Trichiurus lepturus, 
and Lepturacanthus savala .These 
species are found all over the year but 
the abundant species in Pakistan is T. 
lepturus (Bianchi, 1985). 
The important Trichiuridae fishes were 
caught with bag nets, seine nets and 
with trawlers (Bianchi, 1985). 
Ribbonfish were not the basic target of 
interest of Pakistani fishermen in the 
past, and were consumed locally in 
fresh condition or practiced as attractive 
baits for catching larger fishes. 
Ribbonfish were mostly exported in 
sundried or salt cured condition to 
countries like Sri Lanka and Malaysia. 
In the last ten years, ribbonfish have 
been able to slowly reach the status of 
one of the dominant marine resources 
816 Muhammad et al., Current fishery status of ribbon fish Trichiurus lepturus Linnaeus, 1758) …  
 
of Pakistan. The landings of ribbonfish 
varied between 31623 tons in 1999 and 
20375 tons in 2009 (MFD, 2012). Now 
chilled ribbonfish are exported to more 
than 30 countries globally including 
China, Singapore, Republic of Korea, 
and Japan. It is rated seventh in order of 
fame among the abused fish group 
(James et al., 1986). The most suitable 
season for rearing of the species was 
during December and May (Rizvi and 
Nautiyal, 2002). They live in groups 
and are pelagic and wandering fishes. 
During the maturing period, they shift 
places from the coastal areas to deeper 
areas (Lazarus et al., 1992). 
T. lepturus was landed in large 
quantities at many landing sites in 
Sindh and Balochistan.  The reports on 
the length-weight relationship and 
landing data from the Sindh coast are 
available (MFD., 2012; Tabassum et 
al., 2013), but the length-weight data 
and landing statistics from the Makran 
coast, Balochistan is not available in 
documented form. Thus, the aim of this 
study was to analyze the length-weight 
relationship and to collect and 
document the landing data of T. 
lepturus from the major fish harbors of 
Makran coast. 
 
Material and methods 
The data for the length-weight 
relationship (LWR) were collected for a 
period of eight months from October 
2015 to May 2016 from the landing 
sites and commercial trawlers operating 
in the coastal waters of Balochistan 
coast.  The total length (TL) was 
calculated from tip of the snout to the 
tip of the caudal fin. Total weight (TW) 
of the specimen was recorded on the 
electronic balance in nearest gram. The 
TL and TW of T. lepturus ranged from 
33-131.4 cm and 50-2000 g, 
respectively. 
The Length-weight relationship (LWR) 
was estimated by using the equation 
W= aLb (Rricker, 1973, 1975). The data 
were log transformed and least square 
method was applied which gave a 
regression equation log W = log a + b x 
log L. where ‘W’ is the body weight of 
the fish, ‘L’ is the total length, ‘a’ is the 
intercept of the regression curve and ‘b’ 
is the regression coefficient.  
The data for the estimation of landing 
and total earnings were collected from 
Marine Fisheries Department, Sindh 
(MFD, 2012) and Directorate of 
Fisheries, Balochistan.  
 
Results and discussion 
 LWR analysis of Trichiurus lepturus 
LWR parameters are important in 
determining the fish health. The 
minimum and maximum values of 
length and weight of 519 individuals of 
T. Lepturus was given in Table 1. The 
total length ranged from 33 - 129.5 cm 
with 60-2000 g in weight. The length-
weight relationship data shows negative 
allometric growth of fish except for the 
month of December when the fish show 
positive allometric growth (b=3.407). 
The lowest value of b was obtained 
from the month of April (b=2.064). The 
significant correlation was observed 
between LWR parameters (p<0.05). 
Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences 16(2) 2017                                          817 
 
 
Table 1: LWR parameters of Trichiurus lepturus: length parameters (Min=minimum length in cm; 
Max= maximum length in cm); weight parameters ((Min=minimum weight in g; 
Max=maximum weight in g; mean and standard deviation); parameters of the LWR 
(N=number of specimens sampled, a=intercept, b=slope and r=Pearson correlation), and 
type of growth [allometric (positive or negative)]. 
 
Months 
 
Length ( cm) Weight ( g)    LWR parameters 
Growth 
type 
  Min - Max Mean (± SD) Min- Max Mean (± SD) N a b r 
October 45.97-129.54 82.4  ( 25.203) 90-2000 615.7 (542.99) 47 -2.906 2.912 0.984 Allometric  - 
November 33 - 127 71.8 (24.80) 60 - 2000 432.9 (500.45) 66 -1.87 2.346 0.819 Allometric  - 
December 55 - 116 82.9 (16.08) 90 - 1300 495.4 (359.94) 70 -3.932 3.407 0.878 Allometric  + 
January 54.3 - 114 78.7 (17.70) 100-1400 497.4 (354.49) 74 -2.408 2.667 0.78 Allometric  - 
February  50 - 109 71.2 (11.46) 100 - 1200 311.8 (202.08) 52 -1.94 2.38 0.821 Allometric  - 
March 41.1 - 123.5 77.7 (22.48) 90 - 1400 533.1 (495.8) 52 -2.684 2.777 0.956 Allometric  - 
April 41 - 117.5 70.5 (17.03) 90 - 1200 321.9 (250.8) 73 -1.36 2.064 0.732 Allometric  - 
 May 40.5 - 123.5 72.5 (19.09) 90 - 1800 409.9 (390.2) 85 -2.347 2.6 0.907 Allometric  - 
The total logarithmic length-weight 
relationship is shown in Fig. 1 which 
also indicates the negative allometric 
growth trend in T. lepturus (b=2.366).  
The majority of the individuals fall in 
the 60-69.9 cm class (Fig. 2). The LWR 
data of the present study are compared 
with earlier reports in Table 2.  
The obtained values of LWR 
parameters are in the same range as 
reported from other parts of the world. 
However, the length-weight data 
indicate that present estimates of fish 
length were higher in size as compared 
to the earlier reported data from 
Pakistan. However, our data are 
comparable with the reports from the 
surrounding region. (Tabassum et al., 
2013) reported the size range of 35-65 
cm from Pakistani waters. (Chkravarty 
et al., 2012) reported the size range of 
13.5-36 cm and 30-850 g in weight 
which is comparatively a smaller size. 
The differences in the size of fish might 
be due to the difference in the 
collection methods. 
Fishery statistics of T. lepturus 
Fig. 3 shows that the total landing of 
ribbonfish has been reduced from 
31,623 metric tons in 1999 to 20375 
metric tons in 2009. The lowest landing 
was recorded in 2001 when only 16352 
metric tons ribbonfish were landed in 
Pakistan. The fisheries of ribbonfish 
showed declining trends from 1999 to 
2009 in the Sindh coast, while that for 
ribbonfish increased in the Makran 
coast during the same period. 
Table 3 shows ribbonfish landings only 
from Pasni at Makran coast from 
January 2015 to December 2015. A 
total of 310.98 metric tons of ribbonfish 
were landed during this period which is 
equivalent to USD 497386.1207. The 
highest landings were recorded from 
October to December (47.554 - 51.441 
metric tons), and lowest during March 
to June (6.247 – 1.015 metric tons).  
The lowest catch was recorded in the 
months of January and February (14.93 
and 17.1 metric tons, respectively).
818 Muhammad et al., Current fishery status of ribbon fish Trichiurus lepturus Linnaeus, 1758) … 
 
 
 
 
Figure 1: Relationship between total length and weight in Trichiurus lepturus from October 2015 to 
May 2016. 
 
 
                                         
Figure 2: Distribution of Trichiurus lepturus in different size classes. 
 
 
Table 2: Comparison of reported LWR parameters of  Trichiurus lepturus with present study. 
  Length (cm) Weight (g) b r2 Source 
      India (Veraval) 38 - 134.1 - 3.587 0.98 Ghosh et al., 2009 
India (Visakhapatnum) 13.5 - 36  30-850 2.7146 0.746 Chkravarty et al., 2012 
Kenya 41 - 99 -        -       - Mwakiti et al.,2016 
Pakistan 35 - 65  40-275 2.65 - Tabassum et al.,2013 
  33 - 129.5 60-2000 2.584 0.7385 Present study 
Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences 16(2) 2017                                      819 
 
 
 
 
Figure 3: Overall landing data (total catch in metric tons) of the Ribbonfish fishery in Pakistan 
during 1999–2009. (Source: MFD, 2012) 
 
Table 3: Landing data of Ribbon fish and its value at Pasni, Balochistan Coast from 
January 2015 to December 2015. 
Ribbon fish 
Total quantity 
 in Metric tons 
Total value  
in Pak Rupees 
Total value 
 in U.S Dollar 
January  14.93 1343700 12826.46048 
February  17.1 1539000 14690.72165 
March  6.247 562230 5366.838488 
April  8.1 1053000 10051.54639 
May  1.577 283860 2709.621993 
June  1.015 162400 1550.210004 
July  26.715 4808700 45902.06186 
August 38.825 6988500 66709.62199 
September  47.554 8559720 81707.90378 
October  51.441 9259380 88386.59794 
November  47.066 8471880 80869.41581 
December  50.41 9073800 86615.12027 
Grand Total 310.98 52106170 497386.1207 
        *Source:   Directorate of fisheries, Balochistan. 
 
The main landing sites of T. lepturus at 
Makran coast was given in Table 4. 
Gwader, Pasni and Damb are the main 
fishing grounds for T. Lepturus. The   
total landing at Jiwani was high 
(5490.50 metric tons) in 2014.  The 
total landings of ribbonfish in 2011 
from all landing centers of Makran 
coast were 1466.128 metric tons (Table 
3) which is equivalent to 733056400 
Pakistani rupees or USD 6997483.772. 
The catch increased in 2013 (16436.188 
metric tons) which was equal to USD 
7171813.994. However in 2014, the 
catch declined to 10122.46 metric tons. 
820 Muhammad et al., Current fishery status of ribbon fish Trichiurus lepturus Linnaeus, 1758) … 
 
 
Table 4: Overall landing data of Ribbonfish fishery, total catch in (metric tons), total value in 
(Pakistani rupees), from 2011-2014 in all landing centers of Balochistan coast of 
Pakistan. 
Year Jiwani Pishukan Gwader 
Surban
-dar 
Pasni Ormara Damb Gaddani 
Total 
catch 
(metric 
tons) 
Total 
Value 
in 
Pakistani 
rupees 
Total value 
in U.S 
Dollar 
2011 533.154 351.194 5044.276 531.101 3640.14 1930.123 631.140 2000.0 14,6661.128 73,3056400 69,97483.772 
2012 630.10 318.14 5036.11 1423.36 5718.40 930.13 125.96 832.12 15,014.32 73,4835900 70,14470.218 
2013 1271.972 455.430 5482.673 1090.074 2095.601 1318.164 3536.339 1185.935 16,436.188 75,1319234 71,71813.994 
2014 5490.50 134.98 948.17 312.93 2185.60 297.49 561.69 191.10 10,122.46 23,3165385 22,25710.052 
*Source:   Directorate of fisheries, Balochistan. 
 
The T. lepturus is also a major fishery 
contributor in tropical and temperate 
waters (Khan, 2006; Raeisi et al., 
2011). The landing statistics at Pasni 
fish harbor indicate that from 
September to December is the peak 
season for ribbonfish fishery and the 
low catch during the summer season 
was due to the increased efforts towards 
the catch of sardines, cat fishes, 
mackerels, and queen fishes. The main 
targeted fishery during June was the 
catch of jelly fish (284.541 in metric 
tons; source Directorate of Fisheries, 
Balochistan).  
Pakistan earns annually USD 
497386.1207 from the catch of 
ribbonfish in the Makran coast which is 
proof that ribbonfish is a highly 
exported fish of Pakistan. The high 
exploitation of this fish requires further 
research to manage this important 
resource from declining. The 
development of a management plans for 
the sustainable exploitation of 
ribbonfish is highly recommended.   
 
Acknowledgements 
We would like to pay our gratitude to 
the staff of the Directorate of Fisheries, 
Balochistan for providing the landing 
data for this study.  
 
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Short communication: Current fishery status of ribbonfish Trichiurus lepturus Linnaeus, 1758) (Trichiuridae) from Makran coast (northeast Arabian Sea)

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Short communication: Current fishery status of ribbonfish Trichiurus lepturus Linnaeus, 1758) (Trichiuridae) from Makran coast (northeast Arabian Sea)

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