Food and feeding habits of snow trout, Schizothorax plagiostomus in River Lidder, from Kashmir Himalaya

Abstract

The food and feeding habits of Schizothorax plagiostomus in river Lidder was studied by examining 500 guts collected throughout the year. The fish samples used in the present study was within the range of 25.5cm to 40.33cm in total length and weight ranging from 250g to 580g in weight and the sampling duration was from July, 2013 to June, 2014. During the analysis of food and feeding habits of S. plagiostomus it was concluded that the fish is benthic herbivorous. Its food mainly consists of plant matter 62.02%. A good amount of miscellaneous food items i.e. mud, sand and detritus 31.01% was also present in the gut of fish along with small quantity of animal food 6.97%. Overall it was concluded that diatoms formed an important constituent of food of S. plagiostomus in all months of the year and the presence of detritus, mud and sand indicates that the fish is a detrivorous, bottom feeder. The gastrosomatic index in case of females ranged from 3.88±0.30 to 7.30±2.128 with minimum in July and maximum GaSI in October and 3.37±0.75 to 7.82±2.22 in males with minimum in July and maximum in December.