Corresponding author: Ronaldo César Gurgel-Lourenço ( ronaldocgl@yahoo.com.br ) Academic editor: Arturo Angulo © Ronaldo César Gurgel-Lourenço, Lucas Silva de Medeiros, Leonardo Mesquita Pinto, Wallace Alves de Sousa, Felipe Braga Pereira, Telton Pedro Anselmo Ramos, Sergio Maia Queiroz Lima, Jorge Iván Sánchez-Botero. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Gurgel-Lourenço RC, Silva de Medeiros L, Mesquita Pinto L, Alves de Sousa W, Braga Pereira F, Anselmo Ramos TP, Maia Queiroz Lima S, Sánchez-Botero JI (2023) Fish fauna from the estuaries of Ceará state, Brazil: a checklist in support of conservation of the Brazilian semiarid coast. Check List 19(1): 63-90. https://doi.org/10.15560/19.1.63 |
We provide extensive surveys in eight estuaries along the coast of Ceará State in Northeastern Brazil, including local samples and data compiled from online data bases and literature. Samplings resulted in a checklist of the estuarine fish fauna, which recorded 126 fish species, and provides original information of some estuaries. Most of the sampled marine species are widely distributed and many are important commercial species for the artisanal fisheries. The addition of records from existing inventories and online collections increases the number of species to 245, of which 11 are threatened (critically endangered or vulnerable) and six are introduced. Our study provides an updated list of fish species of the estuaries along the semiarid coast of Brazil and is intended as a subsidy for further research, conservation and management efforts.