Niharika P. Shah, N.C. Ujjania and Aakash B. Pardeshi
Abstract
The present study was conducted to understand the morphometric and Meristic characteristics of stripped catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus, Sauvage 1878) culture in south Gujarat. For the morphometric measurement and Meristic count total 815 fish specimens were randomly collected from the described culture systems. For the morphometric measurements of the fish, total length (TL), standard length (SL) and body weight were taken. Meristic counts were included to count number of spine and rays for dorsal fin, pectoral fin, pelvic fin, anal fin and caudal fin. In present study, morphometric observation including total length (TL) 18.500-48.00 cm with mean 34.760±0.185, standard length (SL) 16.500-39.000 cm with mean 28.791±0.154 and weight (WT) 100.00-930.00 g with mean 376.720±5.615 was observed in studied fish. The morphometric relationship of the variables (TL vs WT, SL vs WT and TL vs SL) shows the linear relationship among the variables respectively. The values of intercept (a = -1.882, -1.546 & -0.024), correlation coefficient (r = 0.820, 0.816 & 0.910) and growth constant (b = 2.832, 2.802 & 0.962) were noted respectively. The Meristic characteristics of the studied fish were counted as dorsal fin spine and rays (1/6), Pectoral fin spine and rays (1/9), Pelvic fin spine and rays (1/7) and anal fin rays (29-30). It is very much essential to record the morphological and meristic characters of the studied fish for identification. All such information can also be considered an initial step for studying evolutionary relationships of fish species.