Technical contribution Length–weight relationship of two fish species from Poonch River, Western Indian Himalaya: Glyptothorax kashmirensis (Hora, 1923) and Crossocheilus diplochilus (Heckel, 1838) By N. K. Sharma 1 , R. Singh 1 , N. N. Pandey 2 , M. S. Akhtar 2 and J. I. Mir 2 1 Department of Zoology, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, Tehri Garhwal, India; 2 Directorate of Coldwater Fisheries Research, Anusandhan Bhawan, Bhimtal, India Summary This study provides the first report of length–weight relation- ships (LWRs) for two fish species, Glyptothorax kashmirensis and Crossocheilus diplochilus, collected from the Poonch River, one of the lesser tributaries to the Indus basin in India. New maximum length records are reported for both species. Introduction Glyptothorax kashmirensis (Hora, 1923) is a benthopelagic freshwater fish belonging to the family Sisoridae. It is most common in the torrential streams of India and Pakistan (Tal- war and Jhingran, 1991). This species is characterized by a thoracic adhesive organ, oval in outline and made up of elongated folds, which help in their attachment to rocks and boulder stones on the river bottom (Kullander et al., 1999). This fish species is critically endangered (IUCN, 2014). Cros- socheilus diplochilus (Heckel, 1838) is a benthopelagic fresh- water fish belonging to the family Cyprinidae, and is widespread in the hill streams of the Indus drainage of Asia, including India, Afghanistan and Pakistan (Kullander et al., 1999). This species is listed as of least concern (LC) in the IUCN Red List of Threatened species (IUCN, 2014). Data on length–weight relationships are still unavailable for most fish species (Froese, 2006). In the present study the length–weight relationships parameters for these two fish spe- cies are given for the first time. Material and methods Measurements of length and weight of Glyptothorax kashmir- ensis and Crossocheilus diplochilus from the Poonch River (33°46 0 22 00 N; 74°04 0 42 00 E), were collected from November 2013 to July 2014. Total length (TL) to the nearest 0.1 mm and body weight (BW) to the nearest 0.1 g were recorded for each individual. Identification of fishes was done following Talwar and Jhingran (1991) and Kullander et al. (1999). LWRs were determined by the linear regression equation: log W = log a + b log TL, where W is the weight of the fish (g), TL is the total length (cm), a is the intercept and b the slope of the regression (Mir et al., 2014). Outliers were removed by plotting log data. All statistical analyses were done using EXCEL 2007. Results A total of 114 specimens of G. kashmirensis and C. diplochi- lus were studied for length weight relationships. No LWRs were available in FishBase (Froese and Pauly, 2013), and the maximum length observed for these two species was greater than previous records. The estimated parameters and length Table 1 Descriptive statistics and estimated parameters of LWRs for two fish species, Poonch River, Jammu and Kashmir, India Species N Total length (cm) Total body weight (g) Maximum fish base length (cm) Regression parameters 95% Cl of a 95% Cl of b r 2 Minimum Maximum Minimum Maximum a a b Glyptothorax kashmirensis b 64 7.99 14.84 9.22 48.19 11.7 (SL) 0.0147 3.02 0.00868–0.0249 2.81–3.23 0.962 Crossocheilus diplochilus b 50 8.22 17.27 16.33 42.64 10.00 (TL) 0.0101 2.78 0.0053–0.0169 2.62–2.93 0.986 N, total number of samples; a, intercept; b, slope; CL, confidence limits; r 2 , coefficient of determination. a Anti-log a. b Bold letters indicate new maximum lengths against FishBase. J. Appl. Ichthyol. (2015), 1–2 © 2015 Blackwell Verlag GmbH ISSN 0175–8659 Received: August 15, 2014 Accepted: February 27, 2015 doi: 10.1111/jai.12834 Applied Ichthyology Journal of