The food and feeding habits of the Indian oil sardineSardinella longiceps Valenciennes

nformation on the food of the Indian oil sardine, Sardinella longiceps, known as Mathi in Malayalam, forming one of the foremost commercially important fisheries of the west coast of India, is fragmentary. As stated by Homell (1910) the food of the oil sardine from the fish curing yards of the Madras State -was reported to be 'mud' but, he described for the first time some of the food constituents of the species. Further, in 1924 he along with Nayudu gave a detailed account of the food composition and its seasonal fluctuations. Information about the nature of the food of this fish is available from the works of John and Menon (1942), Chidambaram (1950), Devanesan and Chidambaram (1953) and Dhulkhed (1962). Nair and Subrahmanyam (1955) and Nair (1960) are of the opinion that the diatom, Fragilaria oceanica is an indicator of the abundance of the Indian oil sardine.