author(s)
Chinthareddy Priyanka, Grishma Tewari, SN Datta and Naveen Kumar BT

abstract
The present study was conducted to assess the morphometric and meristic variations in different species of family Bagridae reported from Harike wetland, a Ramsar site in Punjab. During the study period, three major species of family Bagridae viz. Sperata seenghala, Sperata aor and Rita rita were encountered in fish catch from Harike wetland. Maximum catch contribution was recorded from S. seenghala, followed by Rita rita and S.aor. Thirty five morphometric and six meristic characters were recorded for all three species of Bagridae. Average body weight of S. seenghala was reported as 800 ± 0.04 g with the range of 342- 1720 g while total length as 53.72 ± 1.08 with the range of 41-69 cm. S. aor represented average weight of captured fish 820 ± 0.11g with the range of 326- 1082 g while total length as 55.9 ± 3.02with the range of 42-62.5 cm. Rita rita represented average weight of captured fish 407± 0.04g with the range of 164- 728 g while total length as 31.01 ± 1.16 with the range of 24-33 cm. In reference to meristic characters, total four number of barbels viz. maxillary, inner mandibular, outer mandibular and nasal barbels were reported from S. seenghala and S.aor while R. rita was reported with three pairs with absence of one mandibular barble. All the reported species showed considerable variations in their morphometric and meristic characters and represented the role of morphometric studies in species identification and measuring discreteness and relationships among various taxonomic categories.