Ichthyofauna of the Inland Water Bodies of Pondicherry Karaikal, Yanam and Mahe

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Language: English

The present report details the fish collections made by the ZSI team during 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1995. The tours to Pondicherry and Karaikal were headed by Dr. K.V. Lakshminarayana, Dr. K. Ramachandra Rao and Dr. Mary Bai and the tours to Mahe and Yanam by Dr. P.T. Cherian and Dr. M.S. Ravichandran respectively. A total of 3526 fish specimens mostly from inland water bodies were collected and identified as belonging to 67 species including 9 species reported by earlier workers. The marine fishes collected from Yanam and Mahe were identified as belonging to 62 species (Appendix 1). A further seven marine species collected by the party from Pondicherry have been included in a recent publication on the marine fishes of Pondicherry and Karaikal by Mishra and Krishnan (2003). An earlier ichthyofaunal report from this area is that of Menon (1961) who listed 175 species from the coromandal coast. Of these, 124 species including 32 freshwater fishes are from Pondicherry and Karaikal.

The present paper on the inland fishes is based on collections made from 61 localities including the following water bodies: River Ginghee, Ponnaiyar, Uppanar, Vellar, Arasalar, Sankaraparni River, Villianoor River, Utseri Tank, Bahour Lake and other ponds and tanks in Pondicherry. From Karaikal the water bodies surveyed include Arasalar, Athakulam, Mulliar, Nallambal Tank, Sellur Pond, Iyanar Koil Pool, Sebastain Pond, Tamaraikulam, Vellai Kulam, Neravy Pond, Pillayar Koil Kulam, Karukkankulam, Sivan Koil Kulam, Periyakulam, Mariamman Kulam and Chettiar Kulam.

Species description is mainly based on Talwar and Jhingran (1991), Menon (1991) and Jayaram (2010). The systematic list includes for each species, the first reference, material examined, length range, register nos, date of collections and collection localities followed by diagnostic features, habitat, remarks and distribution.

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