Digha is the largest fishlanding centre of West Bengal. The marine fish catches from this point meet the demand of different markets of the state especially of Calcutta and Howrah. Fishes inhabiting the coastal waters of Digha are a treasured resource both in terms of their utility as food and as materials for scientific study. Digha has a potential coastline of about 10 km which offers scope for more effective exploitation of marine fishery resources. A list of marine and estuarine fishes of Digha was first published by Manna & Goswami (1985) who listed 168 species. Later, Goswami (1992) in an elaborated faunal list from this coast, listed 239 species of fishes from Digha including freshwater species. Some of the marine species from this list are of doubtful status and some are synonimysed by subsequent workers. Therefore, the list in fact embodies about 170 currently recognised species of marine fishes. Talwar et al. (1994) in a fairly comprehensive report on marine and estuarine fishes of West Bengal recorded 402 species of fishes inhabiting marine and esturaine zone of West Bengal. This account includes the species from the Hugli estuary and the Sandheads also without specifying place of occurrence of most of the species. Hence, it is difficult for an average reader or the student to understand the state of the art of ichthyofauna of Digha coast. Moreover, for preparing any programme of proper utilisation of fishery resources without detriment to their ecosystem, an understanding of the ichthyofaunal diversity and seasons of occurrence of important commercial fish species / groups is of prime importance. The present study was, therefore, undertaken with a view to document in a single cover, the species available from Digha coast and the seasons of occurrence of commercially important fishes.
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