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Morphometric and Meristic Characteristics and Some Aspects of Reproductive Biology of Spiny Eel, Mastacembelus armatus (Lacepede, 1800)

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, India Section B: Biological Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Various body measurements of spiny eel, Mastacembelus armatus (Lacepede, 1800) were positively correlated with total length, and with head length at 1 % significant level and showed no significant morphological difference between two sexes. The relationship between body measurements was found to be linear. The relation between the total length and weight of M. armatus is described as \( Log BW = - 3.115 + 2.0436 Log TL \) for females and \( Log BW = - 4.5998 + 2.6271 Log TL \) for males. The mean relative condition factor values ranged from 0.839 to 1.50 with a mean of 1.032 for male and 0.867 to 1.074 for female with a mean of 1.009. The length–weight relationship and relative condition factor showed that the growth of M. armatus was quite satisfactory. The mean gonado-somatic index values of over twelve months showed that M. armatus had one breeding season and that was in April to June, ranged from 12.21 ± 0.40 to 14.40 ± 0.40 for females and 0.85 ± 0.03 to 0.99 ± 0.09 for males. Fecundity-ovary weight, fecundity-total length and fecundity-body weight gave strong positive relationships. The result will be useful for fishery managers to impose adequate regulations for sustainable fishery management.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge their heart-squeezed gratitude, indebtedness and sincere appreciation to their esteemed and reverend first supervisor Late Dr. Md. Mukhlesur Rahman Khan, Professor, Department of Fisheries Biology and Genetics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, for his constant encouragement, kind co-operation, constructive suggestions and cordial support during this research work. The authors also would like to express their deepest sense of respect to all the teachers of the Department of Fisheries Biology and Genetics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh for their cordial multifarious assistance to complete this work. Thanks to Eleonore R. A. Viez (BEVT, ULB) helping for data analysis. Also special thanks to reviewers for their valuable comments regarding this article.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Le Département de Biologie des Organismes (DBO), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Franklin Roosevelt laan 50, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

      Anisul Islam Mahmud

    2. Department of Biology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Pleinlaan 2, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

      Anisul Islam Mahmud

    3. Dipartimento di Biologia, Universita’ degli Studi di Firenze (UNIFI), Via Madonna del Piano 6, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence (FI), Italy

      Anisul Islam Mahmud

    4. Institute of Oceanography and Environment (INOS), Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), 21030, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia

      Anisul Islam Mahmud

    5. Department of Fisheries and Marine Science (FIMS), Noakhali Science and Technology University (NSTU), Noakhali, 3814, Bangladesh

      Anisul Islam Mahmud & Yousuf Ahmmad Patwary

    6. Department of Fisheries Biology and Genetics, Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh, Bangladesh

      Yousuf Ahmmad Patwary, Md. Rafiqul Islam Sarder & Md. Fazlul Awal Mollah

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    Anisul Islam Mahmud and Yousuf Ahmmad Patwary have contributed equally to this work.

    Appendices

    Appendix 1

    Table 5 Morphometric measurements M. armatus (Female)
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    Appendix 2

    Table 6 Morphometric measurements M. armatus (Male)
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    Appendix 3

    Table 7 Mean Total length, mean body weight, mean gonad weight and mean GSI of male and female M. armatus
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    Mahmud, A.I., Patwary, Y.A., Sarder, M.R.I. et al. Morphometric and Meristic Characteristics and Some Aspects of Reproductive Biology of Spiny Eel, Mastacembelus armatus (Lacepede, 1800). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., India, Sect. B Biol. Sci. 88, 339–353 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40011-016-0754-7

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