Morphometry and length weight relationship of the Catfishes Arius caelatus (Valenciennes, 1840) and Arius thalassinus (Ruppell, 1837) off Mumbai, Veraval and Vishakhapatanam coasts

Abstract

The catfishes, Arius caelatus and Arius thalassinus have been compared morphometrically for seven characters with reference to fork length from Mumbai, Veraval, Vishakhapatnam and Veraval coasts respectively. For Arius caelatus, significant differences were found between the sexes at the same locality, within the same sexes at different localities and between both sexes combined from Mumbai and Veraval four out of seven characters were investigated. Similarly, for Arius thalassinus, significant differences were noticed between and within the sexes at the same locality and when the sexes were combined, almost all the characters showed highly significant differences between the Veraval and Vishakhapatnam populations, which have been attributed to separation of stocks. The sex specific length weight relationships between the sexes as well as locations were not significant for A. caelatus, hence a relation common to both sexes and regions was established. But A. thalassinus showed highly significant differences, in respect of sexes as well as locations. Therefore, separate relationships were obtained for sexes and locations for the latter.