New Record and DNA Barcoding of the Flat Needlefish (Belonidae), Ablennes hians (Valenciennes, 1846) from Iskenderun Bay, Eastern Mediterranean, Türkiye

OpenAlex · Turkish

This study reports the flat needlefish Ablennes hians on the coasts of Türkiye for only the second time. mtDNA COI gene region was used for molecular identification of the species. On 21 December 2024, fishermen caught the specimens used in the study at a depth of 24 m in Iskenderun Bay. The COI sequences obtained in this study matched A. hians reference sequences with 100% identity in BLAST searches of the BOLD and NCBI databases. Genetic distance results indicate that the Turkish population is extremely close to the Israel population (0.0085) this Mediterranean group is genetically distinct from the closest Red Sea (Egypt) population (0.0563) and other Indo-Pacific populations. This verified that A. hians may have entered the Mediterranean via the Red Sea. On the other hand, more specimens from the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Atlantic Ocean should be studied to determine the true route of the species.