Morphometric characteristics, sexual dimorphic characters, length-weight relationship and feeding behavior of Chitala chitala from river Indus, Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Chitala chitala commonly known as clown fish is an important fresh water fish found worldwide. A study on the morphometric characteristics, length-weight relationship and feeding habit from stomach and gut analysis of C. chitala was conducted on 32 specimens collected from different zones of River Indus, Pakistan during the month of January and April. These samples were examined in Fisheries lab, Zoology department, Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi Khan. Various external and internal morphometric characters were studied to know their correlation with reference to size (TL and W). Correlation coefficient (r) value (0.98) showed high significant relationship between total length and wet weight, while growth pattern was near to isometric as value of ‘b’ being 2.86. The interrelationship of total length to the eye diameter (0.63), length of dorsal fin (0.44), pectoral fin length (0.69), pre orbital length (0.59), IOD (0.36), DFB(0.53), PFB (0.47) show poor correlation to total length (p>0.05). All other external parameters are highly significant to the total length (p