Morphometric and meristic characters of threatened Notoperus notopterus in river Gomti, Lucknow (India)

Abstract

The bronze featherback, Notoperus notopterus, is distributed in Ganga, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery and supports commercial riverine fisheries throughout India. An attempt was made to record the morphometric and meristic characters of threatened bronze featherback, N. notopterus, inhabiting river Gomti in Lucknow (India). Present study reveals that for the stocks of N. notopterus inhabiting Daliganj and Khadra stations, only four characters out of eleven have been found statistically significant. Though the differentiation tendencies appears to have commenced in the two stocks inhabiting different ecological conditions, these are not yet sufficient to classify them into separate populations since they are liable to disappear with the change in habitat. Thus, it may be concluded that the population of N. notopterus at both the sites of Gomti river are drawn from a common stock and no remarkable differentiation in morphological characters has taken place for placing them under separate natural populations.