The morphometric and meristic analysis of some Puntius species from central India

ABSTRACT Four species of genus Puntius, collected from central India, were studied for twenty six morphometric measurements and seventeen meristic counts. The minimum and maximum range, mean, standard deviation, percentage of various parameters in total length and head length were estimated. The correlation and regression analysis was carried out for some important characters in relation to total length and head length. The coefficients of correlation (r) for various characters ranged from 0.240-0.994 for Puntius conchonius, 0.567-0.996 for P. chola, 0.786-0.997 for P. sophore and 0.237-0.997 for P. ticto. This indicates that P. chola and P. sophore exhibited a high degree of interdependence of the various characters, while Puntius conchonius and P. ticto have a lower degree of interdependence. The meristic characters showed very limited or no variation in all the four species. The dorsal fin rays counted as 9 in all four species which revealed deviation from earlier studies (10 or 11) of different workers. References Agarwal, S.S. and Saksena, D.N. 1977. A checklist of fishes from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. J. Jiwaji Univ., 2: 164-169. Bagenal, J. B. and Tesch F. W. 1978. Methods for assessment of fish production in freshwaters. Oxford, Blackwell Scientific publication, p. 361. Datta Munshi, J. S. And Srivastava, M. P. 1988. Natural history of fishes and systematic of freshwater fishes of India. Narendra publishing house, Delhi, pp.178-193. Day, F. 1878. The fishes of India being a natural history of the fishes known to inhabit the seas and fresh waters of India, Burma, and Ceylon. Vol. 2, Reprinted 1978. Today & Tommarrow’s book agengy, New Delhi. Dhanya, V.M.R., Jaiswar, A.K., Palaniswamy, R. and Chakraborty, S.K. 2004. Morphometry and length-weight relationship of Coilia dussumieri , Valenciennes, 1848 from Mumbai waters. J. Ind. Fish. Asso., 31: 65-70. Dwivedi, S. N. and Menezes, M. R. 1974. A note on the morphometry and ecology of Brachirus orientalis (Bloch and Schneider) in the estuaries of Goa. Geobios, 1: 80-83. Garg, R.K., Rao, R.J. and Saksena, D.N. 2007. Checklist of fishes of Ramsagar reservoir, Datia district, Madhya Pradesh, India. Zoos' Print Jour-nal, 22(8): 2801-2803. Hamilton, F. 1981. An account of the fishes found in the river Ganges and its branches. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, Dehradun. pp.310-315. Jayaram, K.C. 1981. The Freshwater fishes of India, Pakistan,Burma and Sri-Lanka. A Handbook. Zoological Survey of India. 475 pp. Jayaram, K.C. 1999. The Freshwater Fishes of the Indian Region. Narendra Publishing House, Delh