SOME MOST PROMINENT ‘TIPS’ TO SEGREGATE FISH(ES)
With special reference to recently worked out fish diversity in the streams of eastern and western Doon
(Uttarakhand)
[The same tactics may be applied for identifying fishes in plains]
In an assemblage of fish catch, fishes can be sorted out and put in store by putting tentative labels on them. The following may be observed.
The following is not in Taxonomic order (deliberately done) just to lay emphasis on the instant exercise (observing more attracting or prominent characteristics) in the field. The real Taxonomic exercise can be accomplished after consulting the literature (hard copy or soft/web copy resources) available. For the present, as many as 14 lots of sorted fishes are presented here with tentative characterisations. Each lot will be examined in laboratory for final results, as incorporated lotwise separately here afterwards:
Lot 1
Sort out small sized fishes with a prominent BLACK BLOTCH at the base of caudal fin, along with one behind gill cover or one at the base of dorsal fin:
…………….place them labeled as Puntius sp. may be!
Lot 2:
Sort out the fish which have jaws prolonged into a beak:
……place them labeled as Needle Fishes or Belonids may be !
Lot 3:
Sort out bright silvery, laterally compressed fish with a black spot at base of every scale and ‘=’ – like black spot marks along the lateral line or vertical bands on the sides:
….. place them labeled as Barilius sp. may be !
Lot 4:
Sort out any fish having oblong bluish spots along sides of the body:
………place them labeled as either Barilius or Raiamas sp.
Lot 5:
Sort out the fish(es) with a dark bluish black band running from snout to the base of caudal fin:
……… place them labeled as either Rasbora or Esomus sp.
Lot 6:
Sort out small-sized fish with metallic blue lateral bands on the sides as well as on caudal and anal fins:
…….. place them labeled as Danio sp.
Lot 7:
Sort out small-sized laterally compressed fishes with peacock blue hue below lateral line, yellowish vertical bands and a stripe of dark pigmentation along mid lateral side, terminating at the base of caudal peduncle or beyond:
………. place them labeled as Devario sp.
Lot 8:
Sort out the brightly or dull coloured, laterally compressed fish(es) with long spiny and soft-rayed dorsal and anal fins and obliquely running vertical bands or oblong spots on the sides:
……… place them labeled as either Trichogaster / Colisa / Badis sp.
Lot 9:
Sort out the fishes which have a SNAKE (= Eel) LIKE body:
…… place them tentatively labeled as Freshwater spiny eels or Mastacembelids.
Lot 10:
Sort out the fish which have long dorsal and anal fins and large scales on the body extending up to head:
……. place them labeled as Snake Heads or Murrels or Channids.
Lot 11:
Sort out fish(es) having the presence of considerably long filamentous extensions of skin around mouth (barbels):
………place them labeled as CAT FISHES.
Lot 12:
Sort out fish(es) with elongated cylindrical or compressed body with long caudal peduncle, deeply forked caudal fin, very large (somewhat hexagonal) to small scales, orange or yellowish or pinkish hue on the fins, shining silvery to dull grey or brown shades etc.:
…….. place them in one lot collectively labeled as Minnows or Minor Carps or Mahseers or Suckerfish etc, as numbered 1 – 5 in assemblage below.
Lot 13:
Sort out small-sized silvery fishes with deciduous scales, blunt snout, eye almost in the middle of the head, dorsum (back of the body) brownish and some exuding more turmeric yellow mucous from below the rounded abdomen:
………………… place them labeled as Aspidoparia sp.
Lot 14:
Sort out small-sized worm-like to fusiform fishes caught while dragging at the bottom through pebbly, sandy, muddy or weedy bed. Such fishes will be drab or light coloured (greenish grey, brownish, drab yellowish) with spots, vertical bands, lateral band, tiger-like wavy bands, black ocellus at the base of upper caudal lobe, a dark stripe / band at the base of caudal fin and have prominent barbels around mouth:
………………place such fishes labeled as Cobitids (Loaches)
