5.On the impact of Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus Peters, 1852) on the Icthyodiversity: A Review |
Yati Sood, Prahlad Dube, Jyoti Sharma and Arjumand Quershi |
Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) is African mouth-brooder cichlid fish. It is native to the eastward flowing rivers of central and southern Africa. Morphological features are quite distinctive such as laterally compressed body, approx 35cm in length and up to 1.13 kg in weight. It are omnivorous. In India it was brought from Sri Lanka for the first time.It’s invasion is problematic for native diversity in many countries. It is listed in Global Invasive Species Database (2006). It is creating threat to local fish fauna in India and other countries. Therefore, it is very important to understand the impact of it's presence in Indian waters. Rajasthan is known for his great Thar desert but south eastern part is blessed with many perennial and emprical rivers and lentic water bodies. Very less work is carried out regarding impact of tilapia on biodiversity of south eastern part of Rajasthan. Present paper tries to review the available literature on this area of study which would be a great help to conserve the native fish diversity. Key words: fish diversity, tilapia, invasive species, morphological features. |