Rare type of yellow-fin tuna caught in Maldives

A rare type of Yellow-fin tuna has been caught from a fishing boat of Alifu Alifu Thoddoo.

Although fins of yellow-fin tuna and big-eye tuna usually caught by Maldivian fishermen are bright yellow, fishermen of Nasru Dhoni from the island of Thoddoo in the month of October 2014 had caught a fish of an overall black coloration, including the fins and fin-lets.

Marine Research Center run under Fisheries Ministry has on Sunday said that this type of Black-fin tuna are common in the Western Atlantic Ocean and are very rarely found in the Indian Ocean.

Black-fin tuna do not grow as big as a yellow-fin tuna; the maximum recorded weight for a black-fin tuna is 22.6 kg, while the specimen caught by the Maldivian fishermen weighed 44 kg, said Marine Research Center.

Marine Research Center has said that they have consulted with several leading international tuna biologists regarding the tuna and it has been concluded that the tuna that was caught by the fishermen was in fact a yellow-fin tuna with a rare condition known as melanism.

Melanism is the opposite of albinism. Melanism causes an animal to have black or nearly black pigmentation on the body while albinism is lack of pigmentation and is found in a wide variety of species in the animal kingdom.

According to Marine Research Center, a similar specimen of melanistic yellow-fin tuna has been discovered by Fiji fishermen before.