Partial morphometrics and meristic evaluation of the two species mudskippers: Scartelaos tenuis (Day, 1876) and Periophthalmus waltoni (Koumans, 1941) from the Persian Gulf, Bushehr, Iran

Abstract

Mudskippers are index of fish in the tidal mud region. 50 species of Scartelaos tenuis and 52 species of Periophthalmus waltoni were collected from the Persian Gulf, Iran in order to partial evalution of morphological and meristic characteristics. The mean weight, total length and standard length of S. tenuis were measured 11.17, 134.4 and 105.7 mm, respectively and for P. waltoni was obtained 11.93, 107.8 and 89.02 respectively. The number of vertebrae in S. tenuis and P. waltoni were counted 23-29 and 2427 respectively. The regression equation the length and weight of S. tenuis and P. waltoni were W= 0.0005 L 2.0506 and W= 0.00001 L2.9519 respectively. Results of gut and food preference index evaluation showed that the main food in S. tenuis was mussels, while for P. waltoni Was Crabs. Relative length of the gut (RLG) showed that S. tenuis tend to omnivores and P. waltoni tend to carnivores. Growth patterns were calculated for S. tenuis and P. waltoni 6.14671 and 0.403199 respectively. According to t-table the shower of b were less than 3, growth pattern for S. tenuis and P. waltoni were negative allometric and isometric respectively. The estimation of maximum age for S.tenuis was estimated at 5 years and for P.waltoni 4 years.