Sagittal otolith morphology and biometric relationships of three snakehead species from the upper Brahmaputra Basin, India

Abstract

North-east India is blessed with diverse aquatic habitats which harbours a rich repository of ichthyofaunal resource including Channid species (Vishwanath and Geetakumari, 2009). The channids, also known as snakeheads are native to Asian and African continents inhabiting in swampy areas and small water bodies (Ruber et al., 2020). The group comprises of three distinct genera; Parachanna, Channa and Aenigmachanna (Britz et al., 2019; Praveenraj et al., 2019) and the genus Channa shows the highest species diversity with 48 valid species. According to Praveenraj et al. (2020), 19 species of Channa are reported from Eastern Himalayan region, out of which 11 species are endemic. Three species of Channa viz. Channa punctata, Channa gachua and Channa striata are ubiquitous in the upper Brahmaputra basin of Assam, India. Significant work related to their biology (Dasgupta, 2000; Ali et al., 2013), ecology (Goswami et al., 2006) and taxonomy (Lakra et al., 2010; Choudhury and Dutta, 2013; Dey et al., 2014) have been successfully carried out. However, detailed study ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: Received:June 24, 2019 Accepted: July 19, 2021 Online: Aug. 28, 2021 _______________