Digestive Tract Morphology, Food composition and Feeding Habits of the Giant Mudskipper Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Pallas, 1770) from the Coastline in Tran De, Soc Trang

Abstract

The giant mudskipper Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Pallas, 1770) is a commercial fish and distributes in estuaries and coastline in Mekong Delta, but until now there is only a study on the growth pattern and condition factor variation of this species in Vietnam. This study was conducted in the coastline at Tran De, Soc Trang from January 2018 to December 2018 with 486 individuals were analysed to provide data on gastrointestinal morphology, food and feeding habits of this species. This species is a carnivorous fish due to RLG = 0.697 ± 0.008 SE and feeds mainly on carbs (Uca sp., 76.06%). Besides crabs, small fish (17.63%), shrimps (3.85%), detritus (1.85%) and mollusca (0.61%) are also found in fish stomach. Moreover, we found that 4 individuals that eat ants. The food composition of P. schlosseri does not vary with genders but by season. There is not different in the fullness index (FI) between genders. The FI of the immature fish is higher than that of the mature one and in the rainy season is higher than that in the dry season. The Clark index of giant mudskipper does not be significantly different between genders and seasons. The results offer scientific data on the nutritional characteristics of this species, which is the basis for research on aquaculture and sustainable exploitation of this goby.
 Keywords
 Clark index, food composition, fullness index, Periophthalmodon schlosseri, RLG.
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Diet Composition and Feeding Strategy of Butis koilomatodon Inhabiting the Estuarine Regions in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

“…The same result is found in the round goby Neogobius melanostomus considered as predator, but it is the prey for zander (Sander lucioperca), the main predator in European brackish waters (Hempel et al, 2016). Further examples, Periophthalmus barbarus (Udo, 2002a, b;Chukwu and Deekae, 2013), Periophthalmus argentilineatus (Kruitwagen et al, 2007), Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Zulkifli et al, 2012;Tran et al, 2019), Boleophthalmus boddarti (Ravi, 2013;Dinh, 2015) and Parapocryptes. serperaster (Dinh et al, 2017b), Eleotris melanosoma (Dinh et al, 2017a), Glossogobius aureus (Nguyen and Tran, 2018), Periophthalmodon septemradiatus (Dinh, 2018;Dinh et al, 2018bDinh et al, , 2020c, Glossgoboius sparsipapillus (Tran et al, 2021a, b), Glossogobius giuris (Phan et al, 2021) are classified both as a carnivorous and a prey.…”

The variations of Clark and Gastrosomatic indexes of Glossogobius giuris living in some regions the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

“…The Clark index of this fish was smaller than that of Glossogobius sparsipapillus of the same genus Glossogobius distributed in the Mekong Delta (Tran et al, 2021a) and Butis koilomatodon have the same family Gobiidae (Dinh et al, 2020). However, this index was larger than that of Stigmatogobius pleurostigma (Dinh and Tran, 2018) and Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Tran et al, 2019) distributed in the same area. Clark index of female fish is higher than that of male fish showed that females have better energy accumulation than males.…”

Gastrointestinal morphology and feeding intensity of Periophthalmus gracilis caught from some coastal provinces in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

“…These findings are consistent with previous studies on other fish species, e.g., Parapocryptes serperaster (Dinh et al, 2017b), Eleotris melanosoma (Vo et al, 2014), and Stigmatogobius pleurostigma in the Mekong Delta. However, GI of Periophthalmus gracilis was relatively low compared to other mudskipper species in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, such as Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Tran et al, 2019b), Periophthalmus variabilis (Hua et al, 2023) or even some species of Gobiidae like Periophthalmodon septemradiatus , Parapocryptes serperaster (Dinh et al, 2017b), Eleotris melanosoma (Dinh et al, 2017a). It was clear that rainfall and changes in the environments of the two different seasons strongly affect the feeding intensity of slender mudskippers.…”