Title: Age, growth and reproduction of the gold band goatfish, Upeneus moluccensis off the Elkhoms coast of Libya
Abstract: The age, growth parameters, spawning season, sex ratio, length at first sexual maturity and fecundity of the goldband goatfish, Upeneus moluccensis (Bleeker, 1855) caught in Elkhoms coasts of the Mediterranean Sea were investigated.It was found that, males constitute about 47.7% its population.Length-weight relationship of both sexes was illustrated as: W = 0.01017 L 3.01 for males and W = 0.00822 L 3.09 for femalesThe age data derived from scale readings were used to estimate the growth parameters of the von Bertalanffy equation and the calculated parameters were: L∞= 233.6 mm, K = 0.2274 and to = -1.872for males and L∞= 234.4 mm, K =0.2120 and t o = -1.983for females It was found that the maximum age of males and females attained five years only.The second year age group was dominated the population.Otherwise, maturation of males and females occurred at a total length of about 11 cm.The monthly values of the gonado-somatic index indicated that spawning of the studied fish take place mainly between May and July.The fecundity-length relationship designated that the fecundity is highly correlated with the fish length and expressed by the equation: Log F = 0.0268 + 3.8120 Log L (r = 0.995).