KOLLAM: In a significant addition to India’s marine biodiversity, scientists have identified a new species of deep-sea catshark from the Arabian Sea off the Sakthikulangara harbour on the Kollam coast and named it Apristurus Drona, or the Arabian slender catshark. The discovery was confirmed through a combination of DNA barcoding and detailed morphological analysis.
The new species was described by researchers Sweta Beura, Bineesh K K, and Dhriti Banerjee in a paper published in the international journal Zootaxa. The shark was identified from four specimens — two males and two females measuring between 439mm and 473mm in length — collected from depths of 400 to 650m along the Kollam slope in the southeastern Arabian Sea.
According to the study, the specimens were recovered as bycatch from deep-sea shrimp trawlers operating off southwest India and landed at Sakthikulangara fisheries harbour. Researchers found that the shark possessed several unique physical features that distinguished it from all known members of the genus Apristurus. Genetic analysis of the mitochondrial COI gene further confirmed that it represented a previously undescribed species.
The species forms a distinct evolutionary lineage and is closely related to catshark species found in the Pacific Ocean and New Zealand. Scientists reported a genetic divergence of 5.5-5.7% from its nearest known relative, reinforcing its status as a separate species.
Researchers said that Apristurus Drona appears to be extremely rare, occurring along the continental slope off Kollam and around the Wadge Bank. It has no commercial value and is only occasionally encountered in fishery bycatch.
The species was named in honour of Drona, the son of the study’s second author, Bineesh K K.
The authors noted that the discovery highlights the rich but still poorly understood diversity of deep-sea sharks in Indian waters. “Further exploration of deep-sea ecosystems and advances in molecular taxonomy are likely to reveal more previously unknown marine species from the Arabian Sea,” Bineesh K K, the author and scientist E at Zoological Survey of India, noted.
