Received: 03-11-2021 / Accepted: 01-03-2022
The study focused on describing the otolith morphology of 14 fish species in the territorial sea areas of Cat Ba (Hai Phong) and Tho Chu (Kien Giang) islands. Using the descriptive method of the authors Harkonen, Campana, Svetocheva; Brodeur. The results showed that otoliths had various shapes and structures such as bow-shaped ellipse (Sargocentron rubrum…), leaf-shaped (Hemiramphus sp…), disc-shaped (Plotosus lineatus…); rostrum,antirostrum(Pentapodus setosus - long;Sargocentron rubrum - unclear), ostium, cauda - shallow, deep(Selaroides leptolepis -shallow; Crenimugil pedaraki- deep…). The otolith size measured using the software Olympus cellSens Standard 2.2 and the ShapeR package in the R programming language.The results indicated thatthere existed differences in otolith size between species (F >> 1; P<0,05).The average size OL, OW, P of Longfin mullet (Crenimugil pedaraki) was highest (OL = 8.03 ± 0.12; OW = 4.07 ± 0.08; P = 24.38 ± 0.15) and the size of Decorated ponyfish(Nuchequula gerreoides)wassmallest (OL = 0.75 ± 0.01; OW = 0.37 ± 0.02; P = 1.35 ± 0.112). The ratio OL/OW has the highest value for tropical sand goby (Acentrogobius caninus)(0,84) and the lowest value for shrimp scad (Alepes djedaba)(0.34).This ratio was different between species (F = 169.1; P <0.05).