A preliminary study on fishery biology of Ceratoscopelus warmingii in the central and northern South China Sea

Based on Ceratoscopelus warmingii samples collected by mid-water trawl in the central and northern South China Sea during 20 14 and 2015,we investigated the biological characteristics including body length and weight composition,sex ratio,gonad maturity stage ,feeding stage of C.warmingii.The body length ranged from 32 mm to 76 mm with an average of 51.47 mm. The dominant group of body length was 45～60 mm (86.9%) . The range of body weight was 0.3～4.3 g with dominant group of 1.0～2.5 g (91.1%) and the average weight was 1.6 g. However,the body size had no significant difference between female and male.The growth parameter value of b was 2.581,and C.warmingii growth appeared allometry.The sex ratio of female to male was 1.391, and there was significant difference among different months and size-different groups. The ratio of female in the samples was higher than that of male in January and October. Gonad samples of C.warmingii appeared in all five months, mainly at StageⅠ and StageⅡ.The maximum perce ntage of gonad maturi ty appeared in January.The length at 50% maturity was estimated as 51. 4 mm. The feeding stage 0～4 accounted for 10.8%, 46%, 33.9%, 8.1% and 1.3% of the total number, respectively.