Diversity of Small Indigenous Freshwater Ornamental Fish under Genus Puntius from Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur and Jhargram Districts of West Bengal, India

Abstract

The main objective of the present study is the investigation of small indigenous freshwater ornamental fish diversity of Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur and Jhargram districts of West Bengal, India and emphasis has been given to their ornamental value and local abundance. Present study is restricted only on the fish species belonging to the genus Puntius. During the study, small freshwater fish species has been surveyed covering all blocks of the three districts under study. Specimens have been collected from different freshwater ecosystems like rivers, ponds, beels etc. and are preserved and identified. It has been observed that the study area represents the existence of nine species of indigenous freshwater small fishes under genus Puntius. Among the recorded nine species, two species, namely Puntius guganio (Hamilton-Buchanan, 1822) and Puntius gelius (Hamilton-Buchanan, 1822) are being found for the first time from the study site. All the nine species are potential to be regarded as ornamental fish. A detail distributional data has been provided for all the species of the genus from the study area. Therefore, present study will highlight the local macro-faunal diversity of the freshwater fish species under genus Puntius as well as ability to become ornamental fish for aquarium keeping. Record of two small fish species from the freshwater ecosystem of the study area is the new addition to the local fish faunal diversity.