Osteological Variation of Caudal Skeleton of Some Barbs from Tripura

Most barbs belong to family Cyprinidae comprising of small to medium sized fishes, distributed mostly in tropical habitats of Asian countries. Osteological study of genus Puntius (P. chola, P. sophore, P. conchonius and P. ticto) and genus Barbonymus (B. gonionotus) were studied to evaluate their caudal skeleton. The specimens were collected from different rivers of Tripura using various fishing gears like cast net, scoop net and gill net. In the present study, presence of four hypural was noticed in the upper lobe and two on the lower lobe in all the species. The morphology of hypurals exhibited variations which attribute to divide these barb species into two groups: one group where first hypural is wider, followed by fourth hypural and in other group, with wider first hypural, followed by third hypural. Lepidotricks attachment to first neural spine also exhibited some variations among the species.