Ichthyofauna of DimnaLake, East Singhbhum District, Jharkhand, India

 

Sushant Kumar Verma1 & Thakur Das Murmu2

 

1At & P.O. Harharguttu, Near TRF Colony, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand 831002, India

2Railway Colony, Bagbera, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand 831002, India

Email: 1 vermasushant2008@gmail.com

 

 

 

 Date of publication (online): 26 June 2010

Date of publication (print): 26 June 2010

ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)

 

Editor: M. Arunachalam

 

Manuscript details:

Ms # o2223

Received 29 May 2009

Final received 21 May 2010

Finally accepted 22 May 2010

 

Citation: Verma, S.K. & T.D. Murmu(2010). Ichthyofauna of Dimna Lake, East SinghbhumDistrict, Jharkhand, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 2(6): 992-993.

 

Copyright: © Sushant Kumar Verma & ThakurDas Murmu 2010. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.

 

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to record theirthanks to Dr. A. Alim for generous help in proper identification of fishes.  The authors are also grateful to Miss. Ghazala Sabih (MCA Project Trainee, TISCO) and Mr. Abhishek Raj for their valuable suggestions throughout the study period.

 

 

 

For Figure & Table - - click here

 

Dimna Lake (22051’43.53”N & 86015’24.68”E) is located 13km away from the limits of the city of Jamshedpur in the district of East Singhbhum, Jharkhand (Fig. 1).  It lies near Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary and can be considered as one of the most important aquatic systems of the District as it serves as a water source for the Tata Steel Plant as well as for the city of Jamshedpur.  The Dimna Lake is irregular in shape and spreads in approximately 1km2 area. At certain places the depth may reach up to more than 20m.  The majority of the households around the study area are engaged in fishing and related activities.

Earlier works on ichthyofauna of Jamshedpur were of Bose et al. (1974) and Verma et al. (2008). The present study adds to the documentation of fish fauna of Jamshedpur from Dimna Lake.

 

Materials and Methods

Fish samples were collected from Dimna Lake from January to December 2008.  Samples were collected of fishermen catches and were preserved in 10% formalin.  Identification of fishes is based mainly on external characters such as body shape, length, depth, mouth and nature of fish spines, scales, etc.

The fishes collected were segregated mainly based on the presence or absence of scales on the body.  When scales are present, they were further separated based on body shape, number and length of fins.  In the case of fishes without fins, they were separated according to the number of barbells present.  After segregation, they were identified according to Jayaram (1999) and Daniels (2001).

 

Results and Discussion

Altogether 40 species of fishes belonging to 28 genera and 15 families were collected from various fishing spots of Dimna Lake during the observation period of about 12 months (Table 1).  Of these Cyprinidae was found to be the dominant family constituting 50% of the total species observed.

In the present observation, species such as Cirrhinus mrigala, Catla catla, Labeo bata, Labeo calbasu , Labeo rohita, Cyprinus carpio,Sperata seenghala, Channa marulius, Channa punctatus, Channa striatus, Channa gachua, Clarias batrachusand Mastacembelus armatus were of commercial value.

 

 

References

 

Bose, K.C., M. Firoz & B. Chakravarty(1974-75). Fishes of Jamshedpur. Research Journal of Ranchi University, Vol X-XI, 12-18.

Verma, S.K., T.D. Murmu& A. Alim (2008). Studies on the fish diversity of river Swarnarekha at Jamshedpur. Biospectra: 3(1): 83-86.

Jayaram, K.C. (1999). The Fresh Water Fishes of The Indian Region. Narendra Publishing House, New Delhi, 551pp

Daniels, R.J.R. (2001). Freshwater Fishes of Peninsular India. University Press (India) Private Ltd, Hyderabad, 282pp.

Molur, S. & S. Walker (1998). Freshwater Fishes of India. Conservation, Assessment and Management Plan (CAMP) workshop, NBFGR, Lucknow, 22-26 September, 156pp.