Laith A. Jawad¹ , Fawziah Sh. Habbeb² , Mustafa A. Al-Mukhtar²

1 Flat Bush, Manukau, Auckland 2016, New Zealand
2 Department of marine vertebrates, Marine Science Centre, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2018, Vol. 8, No. 4   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2018.08.0004
Received: 04 Dec., 2017    Accepted: 29 Dec., 2017    Published: 12 Jan., 2018

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Jawad L.A., Habbeb F.S., and Al-MukhtarM.A., 2018, Some osteological studies of Coptodon zillii (Gervais 1848) and Oreochromis aureus (Steindachner 1864) collected Shatt al-Arab River, Basrah, Iraq, International Journal of Marine Science, 8(4): 26-32 (doi:10.5376/ijms.2018.08.0004)

This paper presents the results of a comparative study of the vertebral column regionalization of Coptodon zillii and Oreochromis aureus of the fish family Cichlidae. Osteological features that may prove valuable for taxonomic indications are defined, and on the basis of the material handled, their use to separate the two cichlid species. The morphological characteristics of the vertebral column of C. zillii and O. aureus allowed the separation of this bony structure into five morphologically distinct regions and the features of their specified vertebral shape. This regionalization is more complex than the classical division in truncal and caudal parts only. The vertebral length and height express a morphotype that may be linked with the cichlid mode of swimming.

Vertebral column; Vertebrae; Ural vertebrae; Morphology