Elemental detections in the scales of white pomfret (Pampus argenteus ) and black pomfret (Parastromateus niger) collected from the local market of Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan

1Zubia Masood* and 2Farhat Iqbal
1. Department of Zoology, University of Karachi, Karachi-75270, Pakistan
2. Department of Zoology, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University, Quetta, Pakistan
Corresponding author:*Zubia Masood
Email: zubiamasood12@gmail.com

The body of the most of the fish is covered with scales,  which are plate like bony structures and are composed of proteins (i.e., collagen and ichthylepidin) and crystals of calcium and magnesium salts.  Fish have been used as one of the most important indicative organism for assessing metals in fresh water and marine water system.  Fish accumulate large amount of metals in their muscles and tissues that are present in the environment in which they lived. Scales of fish accumulate high concentration of metals such as, calcium, lithium, zinc, lead, strontium and manganese. Mostly scales are including as useless or worthless materials, which are also responsible for increasing the environmental pollution in fish markets, therefore, present study will highlight the presence of some useful elements that could be extracted for the preparation of useful products in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Therefore, the basic aim of the present study was to detect some selected elements in the scale samples obtained from two pomfret fish species, i.e., Pampus argenteus and Parastromateus niger collected from fish market of Quetta in order to observe that whether the scales of these pomfret species will be rich sources for the extraction of these useful minerals or not?