Andaman Nicobar Island is located in the Indian Ocean in the Southern reaches of the Bay of Bengal. There are about 572 islands in the territory of which only 38 are permanently inhabited. The EEZ around the island encompasses an area of 0.6 million sq km forming about 28% of the Indian EEZ. The Andaman Sea, encircled by islands and land areas has been a distinctly closed and isolated basin during the Pleistocene and the sea level was estimated as being 100 m lower than at. Several fish species were evolved in the closed basin and became endemic species to the Andaman Sea at. Thus the Andaman Sea coast Andaman and Nicobar Islands shows much abundant coastal fish fauna, because of its situation at the junction of the two Oceans, having much variable habitats as coral reefs, sandy beaches, mad flats, and mangroves, and several numbers of endemic fish species.

Globally chondrichthyans (Shark, Skates, Rays & Chimaera) has become a major hot discussion due to their status, conservation and increasing threat. Andaman and Nicobar Islands is one of largest oceanic archipelago system. It’s located between lat. 6 ͦ - 14 ͦ N and Long. 92 ͦ - 94 ͦ E in southern reaches of Indian Ocean. About 28% of country Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ 0.6 million km2) falls under territorial jurisdiction encompassing 1,192 km coastline (Comprising 572 islands). The continental shelf are limited (estimated area of 16,000 km2) and the sea is very deep within few 100 meters from the shore. Union territory Andaman and Nicobar Islands is situated more than 1200 kilometers away from Mainland. Ichthylogical studies initiated by Alcock during 20th century continued later by some Ichthyologist and many of species has been discovered from Andaman Sea. As per fisheries department, Andaman and Nicobar administration operated commercial mechanised boats (55), Motorised boats (1293), non-mechanised (1465) crafts and gears are operating and interesting species composition are landed every day. Many of the sharks and rays and it’s targeted fishery has been observed from multiday operating crafts. As of 2013 maximum of 64 chondrichthyans species out of 1434 species of fishes are reported from Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The tropic waters of Andaman and Nicobar Islands sustain extremely diverse and rich ichthyofauna which forms the basis of livelihoods for thousands of local fishermen. Research on chondrichthyans from Islands is scarce and limited knowledge are available which led us to explore the ichthyofaunal resource. Recent investigation by various researchers resulted with some interesting findings on sharks and rays from Andaman and Nicobar waters viz. Rhincodon typus, Pseudocarcharias kamoharai, Cephaloscyllium silasi, Proscyllium magnificum, Hemigaleus microstoma, Carcharhinus plumbeus, Squalus megalops, Centrophorus acus, Centrophorus moluccensis, Cruriraja andamanica, Plesiobatis daviesi, Himantura granulata, Mobula thurstoni.