Journal of Environmental Biology

Reproductive biology of Indian Silurid catfish

Ompok pabda in river Gomti

Braj Kishor Gupta¹, Uttam Kumar Sarkar¹* and Sanjay Kumar Bhardwaj²

¹National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Lucknow-226 002, India

²Department of Zoology, Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut-250 004, India

*Corresponding Author E-mail: usarkar1@rediffmail.com

Publication Data

Paper received:

26 April 2012

Revised received:

06 March 2013

Accepted:

03 June 2013

Abstract

Reproductive biology of an Indian Silurid catfish, Ompok pabda were determined in a moderately impacted tropical River Gomti in India. Samples of fish were collected monthly between May 2008 to April 2009 in two zones; upstream site at Mishrikh, Sitapur and midstream site at Lucknow. Length at first maturity calculated through maturity curve was 12.9 cm (males) and 13.9 cm (females) in total length. The gonado-somatic index indicated that spawning generally occurred between June - September and sex ratio showed a predominance of females, representing 54.3% of the total sample. The fecundity was found to vary from 2460 to 5986 nos, with mean of 4330 ? 799 for the fish with total length of 11.5-20.0 cm. The relationship of fecundity with total length and total body weight of the fish was Log F = 0.374 Log L+ 0.37, r² = 0.999 and Log F = 0.337 Log W ? 0.40, r² = 0.966. The well defined traits of O. pabda from the Ganges basin provide basic information which can be further used for species conservation planning.

 Key words

Fecundity, Gomti River, Ompok pabda, Sexual maturity,? Silurid fish

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