Fish biodiversity of Western Ghats regions of India

Abstract

Western Ghats of India is one of the richest hotspot of biological diversity in the world and harbour 38 east- and 27 west-flowing rivers to drain the entire watershed region and other wetlands which are the natural abode of numerous aquatic animals including fishes. Though several attempts were made to prepare the checklist of fishes of the Western Ghats, there is still scope to update the available list and associated information for user-friendly storage and retrieval of data. This paper reviews the current status of fish diversity described and reported so far and discusses the methodologies used in developing the checklist of 379 fish species reported from the entire Western Ghats region. The revised checklist reports distribution of fish diversity under 48 families, and 143 genera, of which about 151 are endemic (39.84%) and 8 are exotics distributed in different ecosystems. Interestingly, the present synthesis of published information shows that about 30 new species from this region were reported since 2003. The present compilation provides the revised scientific name of the species with latest taxonomic nomenclature and recent information on common name, family, habitat, endemic nature and conservation status of fish species as per IUCN Red List (2012). It is expected that the updated list would be much useful for decision making and effective management of the fish genetic resources in this region .