Systematic position
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii (Ray-finned fishes)
Order: Anguilliformes (spiny eels)
Family: Ophichthidae (snake eels)
Genus: Pisodonophis
Species: P. cancrivorus
Synonyms
Myrophis chrysogaster Macleay, 1881
Ophichthus chilkensis Chaudhuri, 1916
Ophisurus cancrivorus Richardson, 1848
Ophisurus nigrepinnis Liénard, 1842
Pisodonophis cancrivorus (Richardson, 1848)
Pisodonophis chilkensis (Chaudhuri, 1916)
Pisodophis cancrivorus (Munro, 1955 and Rahman, 1978)
Prisodonophis chilkenesis (Jhones and Sujansinghani, 1954)
Common name: Longfin snake-eel (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991).
Distribution: Bangladesh (Rahman, 1989) and Indo-west Pacific (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991).
Conservation status: Not threatened in Bangladesh (IUCN, 2000)
Morphology: The body is snake-like, cylindrical, and compressed with a long tail. Anterior nostril tubular and posterior nostril along lower edge of lip. Median fin discontinuous posteriorly and dorsal fin starts over front to the middle portion of pectoral fin and extend up to end of the body (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991). Seven pores around eye and lateral line present but body is scaleless (Rahman, 1989).
Head 8.5% TL. Height 3.1% TL. Eye 8% HL. Lateral line absent (Galib, 2008).
Maximum lengths: 29.3 cm (Galib, 2008), 50 cm (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991) and 108 cm (Rahman, 1989).
Habitat: Lagoons and estuaries, entering freshwater (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991). Found in Dakatia river near Chandpur (Rahman, 1989) and Chalan Beel (Galib et al., 2009).
Harvesting: Caught incidentally to other species (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991).
Economic importance: Non-food fish in Bangladesh.
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REFERENCES
Chaudhuri BL. 1916. Fauna of the Chilka Lake. Fish. Part II. Memoirs of the Indian Museum, 5(5): 441-458.
Galib SM. 2008. A Study on Fish Diversity and Fishing Gears of Chalan Beel with Reference to Preservation of Catches, Honors dissertation submitted to the Department of Fisheries, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh, 172 pp.
Galib SM, Samad MA, Mohsin ABM, Flowra FA and Alam MT. 2009. Present Status of Fishes in the Chalan Beel- the Largest Beel (Wetland) of Bangladesh, Int. J. Ani. Fish. Sci. 2(3): 214-218.
IUCN Bangladesh. 2000. Red book of threatened fishes of Bangladesh, IUCN- The world conservation union. xii+116 pp.
Macleay W. 1881. A descriptive catalogue of Australian fishes. Part IV. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 6(2): 202-387.
Munro. 1955. Marine and Freshwater Fishes of Ceylon, p. 97.
Rahman. 1978. Bull. Indian Soc. Ichthyologists, 4: 88-91.
Rahman AKA. 1989. Freshwater Fishes of Bangladesh, 1st edition, Zoological Society of Bangladesh, Department of Zoology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, pp. 44-45.
Richardson. 1944. Fish, p. 97.
Talwar PK and Jhingran AG. 1991. Inland Fishes of India and Adjacent Countries, Vol. I, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi-Calcutta, p. 87.
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