Among cephalic skeletal anomalies, those involving the opercular complex are more frequent in reared gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata). Even if they’re not life-threatening, these malformations negatively affect the biological functions, as well as the image of the product and its market value. In general the hatcheries perform a selection on reared fish stocks in order to eliminate the deformed subjects, with an increase of production costs. In the past, field observations and successively scientific study demonstrated that the opercular anomalies can be reversible, improving the final product image. The aim of this study was to verify if the exterior recovery process of the deformed opercular complex is associated also to a bony recovery of the structure.
The opercular bones (operculum, sub-, pre- and interoperculum, branchiostegal rays) are isolated from 393 gilthead seabream heads with monolateral opercular malformations. Each bone was evaluated for morphological and morphometric aspects. The results showed the opercular bone changes toward the normality over the time, confirming also a skeletal recovery process of the deformed opercular complex, even if this recovery occurs more slowly than the other tissue components.
