Morphological Characterization of Two Fresh Water Eels Monopterus cuchia (Hamilton, 1822) and Ophisternon bengalense (McClelland, 1844)

Abstract

Morphometric and meristic characters and truss measurements of 32 Monopterus cuchia, and of 17 Ophisternon bengalense were compared to know the population status of two fresh water eels of Bangladesh. The mean numbers of line below head were significantly different between two species. Significant differences were observed in 11 morphometric characters: Pre dorsal length (PDL), Post dorsal length (PoDL), Post anal length (PoAL), Head length (HL), Snout length (SnL), Upper jaw length (UJL), Lower jaw length (LJL), Head width (HW), Pre orbital length (PrOrL), Least body diameter (LBD) and Highest body diameter (HBD) and one truss measurement (3-5) between two species in varying degrees. For both morphometric and landmark measurements, the first and second DF (discriminant function) accounted 64.8% and 33.2% of among group variability, explaining 98% of total group variability. M. cuchia collected from Mymensingh and from Dinajpur constructed one sub-cluster and O. bengalense collected from Sathkhira and from Bagerhat constructed another sub-cluster based on the Distance of squared Euclidean dissimilarity. A correct classification of individuals into their original population from leave-one-out-classification varied between 93.3% and 94.1% by discriminant analysis. The results of the present study suggested that there was limited intermingling among populations and the populations of the species were separated from one another.

Economics of freshwater Mud Eel fattening (Monopterus cuchia) in polyculture system: a case study from Nilphamari, Bangladesh

“…Moreover, the effect of stocking density on survival, growth and production of mud eel under semi-intensive pond aquaculture (Chakraborty et al 2018); growth performance in different ditches conditions (Hosen et al 2019); and yield performance of sustainable aquaculture of Monopterus cuchia have also been observed by Chakraborty et al (2017). In addition, researches on the morphological characterization of two freshwater eels Monopterus cuchia and Ophisternon bengalense were conducted by Roy et al (2016). Furthermore, Sharmin et al (2017) reported the marketing system and export potentiality of freshwater mud eel in some selected northwest regions of Bangladesh.…”

Genetic Characterization of Swamp Eel of Bangladesh Through Dna Barcoding and Rapd Techniques

“…Species of this family can breathe in the air, making them capable of surviving in lowoxygenated water and moving between ponds during the rainy season. Swamp eels are naturally distributed throughout India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines and New Guinea (Roy et al 2016). Monopterus are exported every year from Bangladesh to different countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Europe and earn 14 million US dollar in 2014 (DoF 2016).…”