24 Indian J. Fish., 67(4): 24-32, 2020 DOI: 10.21077/ijf.2020.67.4.98798-03 Morphometric and meristic characters of Otolithoides pama (Hamilton, 1822) occurring in Hooghly-Matlah estuarine system of West Bengal, India DIBAKAR BHAKTA * , SUDHIR KUMAR DAS, BASANTA KUMAR DAS * AND T. S. NAGESH Department of Fisheries Resource Management, Faculty of Fishery Sciences, West Bengal Univerisity of Animal and Fishery Sciences, Chakgaria, Kolkata - 700 094, West Bengal, India * ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore, Monirampore, Kolkata - 700 120, West Bengal, India e-mail: dibakar.bhakta@icar.gov.in ABSTRACT The present study analysed the morphometric and meristic characters of Otolithoides pama (Hamilton, 1822) collected from the Hooghly-Matlah estuarine system of West Bengal, India. A total of 618 specimens (298 males and 320 females) were collected during the period of 18 months from November 2016 to April 2018 with length ranging from 100-384 mm and weight 7.29-470.71 g, respectively. The analysis of 14 morphometric characters revealed that standard length has the fastest growth rate when compared to total length, while eye diameter has the lowest growth rate compared with head length. A high degree of signifcant positive correlation with the ‘r’ values ranging from 0.978 to 0.997 was observed among different morphometric characters of O. pama. Among nine of the meristic counts, the coeffcient of variation was found to be highest in anal fn rays (6.31%) and minimum in dorsal fn rays (1.12%). Based on the meristic counts, the fn formula of O. pama from the present study can be described as B. 7 , D. 9-10/1/ 44-45 , P. i/ 16-17 , V. 1/ 5 , A. 2/ 7-8 , C. 19-21 , L. 48-52. The number of gill rakers on the frst left gill arch ranged from 19-21. Keywords: Hooghly-Matlah Estuary, Meristic counts, Morphometric characters, Otolithoides pama, West Bengal Introduction Morphological characters, such as body shape and meristic counts, have long been used to delineate fsh stocks (Heincke, 1898; Teugels, 1982; Villaluz and Maccrimmon, 1988; Haddon and Willis, 1995; Silva, 2003; Turan, 2004). It includes the analysis of body shape or the shape of particular morphological features of various dimensions or parts and provides adequate information for identifying marine fsh stocks and describing their spatial distributions (Ihssen et al., 1981). Morphometric data are continuous (e.g. head length and body length) while meristic characters are enumerable morphological features (e.g. fn rays, gill rakers and scales in rows) of fshes. An important aspect of the meristic analysis is that data obtained are discrete. Data on morphometric measurements can identify differences between fsh populations and used to describe the shape of fsh. They are measurable features that are helpful to separate closely related genera, species and even populations within (Cadrin, 2000). Statistical analysis of morphometric characters gives a better idea of relationships within species and also to compare with the same species in different geographical areas. The taxonomic classifcation of organisms and understanding the diversity of biological life, were historically based on descriptions of morphological forms (Dean et al., 2003). Morphological characters have been commonly used in fsheries biology to measure discreteness and relationships among various taxonomic categories (Quilang et al., 2007). Several works on morphometric and meristic parameters have been done on sciaenids in the Indian context. Some of the studies are by Rao (1963) on Pseudosciaena (=Protonibea) diacanthus, Jayaprakash (1974) on Johnieops sina (=Johnius dussumieri). Basu (1975) on Otolithes argenteus, Gandhi (1982) on Pennahia anea from Porto Novo waters, Jayasankar (1989) on Nibea maculata from Mandapam waters, Manojkumar and Acharya (1990) on Otolithoides biauritus from Bombay waters, Chakraborty (1992) on Otolithes cuvieri, Johnius macrorhynus and Johnius vogleri (=borneensis) from Bombay waters, Bhuyan (2003) on Johnius carutta, Pennahia macrophthalmus (=anea) and Otolithes ruber from Odisha coast, Manojkumar (2011) on J. sina and O. cuvieri along the Malabar coast and off Veraval, Kumar (2012) on J. sina and Sandhya (2015) on O. cuvieri. Sciaenid fshes are represented by 49 species, belonging to 22 genera in the Indian Ocean of which 40 species belonging to 20 genera, inhabit the seas of India (Talwar, 1995). Two large-size species viz., Macrospinosa