Abstract

Common snook is a commercial fish whose overexploitation and damage of its habitat has caused it to be listed as a "vulnerable" species in the Red Book of Endangered Marine Fish of Colombia. Given the high market price and demand of its flesh in Colombia in comparison with other species, concern has arisen about the legitimacy of products that are market-ed as C. undecimalis within the country. A previous study found fraudulent cases in one out of three fillets sold as snook in the Bogota market; therefore our study aimed to evaluate the possibility of similar fraudulent specimens in the city of Santa Marta. To undertake this, we bought fillets at fish markets and branded products of two different companies in the main supermarkets of the city. By DNA barcoding (COI and 16S), we compared the results (BLAST) for species validation. Our results showed that none of the products were C. undecimalis; moreover, we found that the sequences obtained from the two branded products were almost identical (0.00 for 16S and 0.01 COI) (interspecific analysis-MEGA), suggesting that the same species is being commonly used to replace C. undecimalis. Although we could not identify the specie that is being used fraudulently (nearest similarity was of 92% with Brotula barbata - BLAST), more detailed study is under way with C. undecimalis and other species of interest in the Colombian marketplace.

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