First comprehensive study on ichthyofaunal diversity of river Khurram Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14634817Keywords:
Ichthyofauna, River Kurram, Khyber PakhtunkhwaAbstract
Highlighting the importance of fish species such as economical, ecological, medical, cheap and rich source of animal portions and also more diverse group among vertebrates the present study was aimed to explore the fish diversity of River Kurram, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan from September 2019 to September 2022. Fish specimens were collected from 12 different sites by the help of local fisherman by using cast net, collected specimens were washed and preserved in 90% ethanol for further observation. A total 1902 specimens were collected and identified which belong to six orders, eight families, 22 genus and 35 species. The most diverse orders were cypriniforms followed by suliriform, Perciform, Salmoniforms and Chenniforms, while less diverse order was Mastacembeliforms representing only one species. In family wise diversity the more diverse family was cyprinadae represented by 19 species (carassius auratus, cyprinus carpio, barilius modestus, barilius vagra, barilius pakistanicus,cyprinus watsoni ,puntius ticto, puntius sophore, schizothorax plagiostomus, schizothorax labiatus, schistura alepidote, schistura shadwalensis, schistura prashari,tor putitora, cirrhinus mrigala ,crossocheilus diplocheilus, garra gotyla followed by sisoradae (glyptothorax stocki, glyptosternon reticulatum, glyptothorax punjabensis, glyptothorax naziri,glyptothorax kashmirensis and ompak pabda, cichilidae(oreochromis aureus,oreochromus niloticus and oriochromis mozabica), nemacheilidae (triplophysa naziri, triplophysa choprai and acanthocobitis botia), Salmonidae(oncorhynchus mykiss and salmo trutta, chennidae (channa gachua and channa punctata, and less diverse was mastacembelidae representing only one species mestacembelus armitus. representing 241 specimens and 12.7% of the total collected specimens, followed by Garra gotta 139 specimens and 7.3%, various pakistanikus 128 specimens and 6.7%, and Tor Putitora 122 specimens and 6.4% On the hand, the specimens of Cyprinus watsoni and schistura shadwalensis were observed rarest in number each 11 specimens with 0.58% of the total specimens in species wise distribution the most abundant species was Schizothorax plageostomus which was collected from almost all study area sites except few sites in upper reign.
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