REPORT ON THE ICHTHYO FAUNA OF ANNA AND MADURAI DISTRICTS " TAMIL NADU

During the years 1986-1987, Zoological Survey of India, Southern Regional Station, carried out two extensive surveys of Anna and Madurai Districts, in Tamil Nadu, under the Mopping Survey Scheme. Madurai District is traversed by the river Vaigai and its tributaries such as Theni, Surali and Moolar. These are seasonal rivers. Apart from these water ways there are few lakes i.e. Kodaikanal Lake and Berijam Lake in Anna District. Some water falls and hillstreams were also surveyed for their Ichthyo fauna. The Vaigai Dam across' Vaigai river near Madurai and Sathiar Dam also near Madurai were also surveyed.

In all there are 34 species in the present collection of 560 examples (503 adults and 57 juveniles) belonging to 9 families.Puntius arenatus (Day) is being reported for the first time from Vaigai Dam.Puntius filamentosus (Valenciennes) and Puntius mahecola (Val.) were treated as two distinct species in accordance with the findings of Selvaraj, Mathew and Abraham (1986-87).Jayaram (1981) was followed for the identification and distribution of fishes..• 1 ex.

Records of the Zoological Survey o/India
Distribution : India : Eastern Himalaya, Meghalaya and Decan.Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand and Sri lanka.
Remarks: Specimens collected from Suruli fall agreed with Danio aequipinnatw in colour pattern, presence of barbels and in number of lateral line scales but.differ from it in having 9-10 branched rays in dorsal fin and 15 .. 16 branched rays in anal fin.A critical analysis of various morphometric characters of specimens collected from various localities was taken up for the study.The results' will be published elsewhere.
Length of head 4.    commences slightly nearer to the caudal end than to the snout.The last undivided dorsal ray s~ooth, osseous inferiorly, becoming articulated superiorly.The firs~ two spines hidden beneath the predorsal rows of scales.
Colour: Upper half of body ste~l blue becoming golden on sides.In the upper half of body each scale has black dots along the outer margin.On the scales on the lateral line, the dots ceases with the upper half of the scale.Dorsal fin with'black, closely packed dots on the first two soft rays and scatterly arranged dots on the other soft rays, which forms a band thicker in the beginning and lighter in the end.First two rays of the anal fin toq, black tipped with dots.Caudal fin black edged.•In general it resembles Puntius arenatus (Day) but it differs from Day's description in the following characters.