Diet of Hepsetus akawo from the Tanoé-Ehy Marsh Forest TEMF (Côte d’Ivoire)

The diet of Hepsetus akawo (Bolch, 1794) was studied in the 12,000 hectare large Tanoe –Ehy (TEMF) Côte d’Ivoire marsh forest. This study was carried out between October 2018 and September 2019, on a sample of 292 digestives tracts of Hepsetus akawo. The sizes of fish whose digestive tracts have been examined vary between 110 and 320 mm of standard length. These fish were caught each month using gillnets, nerve nets, hawks and hooks. Of these 292 tubes, 187 stomachs contained prey and 105 were empty, which corresponds to an emptiness coefficient of 35.96%. The general diet of H. akawo is composed of 9 items grouped into 5 categories of prey: Cyprinidae, Clupeidae, Cichlidae, Macrophytes, plants, and remains of insects. H. akawo feeds mainly on Cyprinidae which constitute the major part of its diet compared to small fish of the Cichlidae family including Hemichromis bimaculatus and Clupeidae including Pellonula leonensis.