Poonam Choudhary, Dheeraj Sharma and Roopma Gandotra
Abstract
The present study demonstrated the first record of armored catfish Pterygoplichthys pardalis, a native of the South American Amazon river belonging to the family Loricariidae from River Tawi, an important tributary of River Chenab, Jammu, J&K, India. Various incidences of occurrence of different species of this exotic catfish outside its native place have been reported earlier from South India, i.e. Telangana state, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar by different authors. The report of the occurrence of this species is for the first time from the Northwest Himalayan region of India. This species was caught as a by-catch during the collection trip. About 31 morphometric and 5 meristic characters were studied along with the taxonomic identification. This species was characterized by the presence of leopard ornamentation on the dorsal side of the body, triangular sucker mouth on the ventral side, and geometrical patterns of lines on the head region.