Length-weight, length- length relationship and condition factor of Channa punctatus collected from three different rivers of India

Abstract

Channa punctatus is commercially important freshwater teleostean fish, commonly known as green snake headed spotted murrel. A total of 261 samples of C. punctatus were collected from the Gomti, Ganga and Ken rivers characterized by different environmental conditions in order to study the intraspecific variations using length-weight relationship. A positive allometric growth (b>3) was recorded in all the sub-populations of the fish except in the females of Gomti River. The fish did not follow the cube’s law strictly as increase in weight was found to be more in comparison to length in all the sub-populations of the fish except in the female of Gomti River where isometric growth was noted. Length-length relationship showed both lengths are highly correlated to each other (r=0.99). The value of condition factor was found to be more than 1 in all sub-populations of the fish indicated good condition of fish.