Otolith mass asymmetry in three sparid fish species collected from the Iraqi waters.

Saccular otolith mass asymmetry is examined in three sparid fish species, Acanthopagrus bifasciatus, A. arabicus, and Sparidentex hasta collected from Khor Abdullah at the North Persian Gulf. This characteristic was computed as the disparity between the weight of the right and left otoliths divided by mean otolith weight in the three sparid species investigated. According to the previous cases obtained on another symmetrical fish species, the absolute value of x in these species does not determine by fish length and otolith growth ratio, while the absolute rate of otolith weight disparity is boosted with the fish length. The estimate of x was between -0.2 and +0.2. Otolith mass asymmetry can show some growth disorder of fish owing to environmental influence.