ИСТИНА

Fish serve as a crucial source of food for humans, leading to the need for intensive ichthyological study to augment and conserve these valuable biological resources. Utilizing the results of squamatological studies in various research disciplines requires initially collecting and characterizing the morphology of scales from diverse species at microstructural and ultrastructural levels. This has been accomplished for fish living in Europe, America, and Western Asia. However, such information is incomplete for China and unavailable for most species. Fish were purchased from Shenzhen markets and online stores. 20 to 30 scales were obtained from different areas on the left side of each species. Certain scales were stained with alizarin red S for five minutes, then washed with distilled water and positioned between microscopic slides. Each scale was digitally imaged using a ZEISS Stemi 305 at a lower magnification and a Carl Zeiss Primo Star at a high magnification. This study presents squamatological material from 26 common commercial species. This research is the first scale atlas available for the China Seas. It will aid in resolving identification issues for future fish taxonomists, paleoceanographers, and researchers in fisheries-oriented fields. The findings reveal that the wide range of data provided by teleost scales is still not fully comprehended in their biological context. We propose that scale characteristics could be incorporated into a morphological matrix to investigate relationships among teleost families. Decoding additional scale information will dramatically broaden our understanding of fish life history, ecology, and phylogenetic relationships