Pearls in Fishes Pseudosciaena Coitor (Hamilton) Blog | UCBMSH – Life Science Degree courses college in Dehradun ( Doon ) , Uttarakhand , India .

Fish Pseudosciaena coitor (Hamilton) locally called as Bhola is of ethnozoological value in Fisheries.

This fish contains stones (large sized Otoliths, a character of family Sciaenidae) which are nothing but fine concretions of calcium carbonate useful for the proper growth of bones. These stones have medicinal values as they are taken out by local fishermen from their fishes’ head and after rubbing and mixing them with water, are given to convalescent children suffering from rickets.

Finely rubbed and polished ‘stones’ are also usually fixed on the silver rings and used as ‘pearls’ in jewellery.[Ref. S.K.Gupta, 1987 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci, India 57(B) II : 199- 200].