Morphological differentiation of catfishes.

Abstract

Analysis of morphometric and meristic traits of twelve species of ariid catshes occurring along the west coast of India indicated that these species can be differentiated based on morphological characteristics. Higher F-ratio for inter-nostril length, mouth width and adipose n length signies their role in species separation either alone or in combination with other morphometric characters. Stepwise discriminant function analysis (SDFA) included all considered variables showing their taxonomic signicance with inter-nostril length, snout length and adipose n length, as the most important discriminating characters. The rst two discriminant functions accounted for the explanation of 89.44% of total variation. SDFA gives correct classication in 99.55% cases with only two misclassied cases among 447 specimens. Meristic features were found to be overlapping except in few instances and hence are less discriminating than morphometric variables.