JoTT Short COMMUNI C ATION 4(6): 2644–2652 Western Ghats Special Series Freshwater fish fauna of Krishna River at Wai, northern Western Ghats, India Sanjay S. Kharat 1, Mandar Paingankar 2 & Neelesh Dahanukar 3 1 Department of Zoology, Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Ganeshkhind, Pune, Maharashtra 411007, India 2,3 Zoo Outreach Organization, 96 Kumutham Nagar, Villankurichi Road, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641035, India 3 Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Sai Trinity, Garware Circle, Pune, Maharashtra 411021, India Email: 1 [email protected], 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected] (corresponding author) Abstract: Freshwater fish fauna of the Krishna River at Wai, Krishna River originates in Wai Taluka, Satara and the Dhom reservoir upstream of Wai, was studied. Fifty one species belonging to 14 families and 33 genera were recorded; District, Maharashtra, India. The river flows west-east 13 endemic to the Western Ghats and two to the Krishna River and the first major dam along its course is Dhom Dam, system. Moderate to rare populations were found for six globally threatened species: Gonoproktopterus curmuca, Labeo potail, while the first major city is Wai. Some studies are Schismatorhynchos nukta, Tor khudree, T. mussullah and available on the fish fauna of Krishna River at Wai and Parapsilorhynchus discophorus. Fish in this area are under Dhom reservoir. Silas (1953) recorded nine species of threat due to two introduced species and five transplanted species, and due to other anthropogenic activities such as freshwater fish from the river at Wai. Jayaram (1995) overfishing and organic and inorganic pollution of the river. Site studied the entire Krishna River system and mentioned based conservation action plans are needed for conservation of rare and threatened fish in this area. that collections were made from both Dhom reservoir and Krishna River at Wai. However, he did not provide Keywords: Freshwater fish fauna, Krishna River system, Threats. a separate checklist of fish in this area. As an offshoot of the same work, Srithar & Jayaram (1990) described a species, Salmophasia longicauda, and suggested that both S. longicauda and an allied species S. novacula are found in the fish catches of Dhom reservoir. Arunachalam et al. (2002) recorded 14 species of Date of publication (online): 26 June 2012 freshwater fish from Dhom reservoir. Taken together, Date of publication (print): 26 June 2012 these studies list 22 fish species in this area, which is ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print) an under representation compared to checklists from Editor: W. Vishwanath other tributaries of the Krishna River system (Kharat Manuscript details: et al. 2003; Jadhav et al. 2011; Dahanukar et al. 2012). Ms # o2796 Received 05 May 2011 There is no documentation of threats to fish species in Final revised received 08 April 2012 Finally accepted 21 May 2012 this area. In the present work we have studied the fish fauna of both Dhom reservoir and Krishna River at Citation: Kharat S.S., M. Paingankar & N. Dahanukar (2012). Freshwater fish fauna of Krishna River at Wai, northern Western Ghats, India Journal Wai in order to document both diversity and threats. of Threatened Taxa 4(6): 2644–2652. Fish were collected from Krishna River at Dhom Copyright: © Sanjay S. Kharat, Mandar Paingankar & Neelesh Dahanukar 2012. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication. This article forms part of a special series on the Western Ghats of India, disseminating the results of work supported by the Critical Ecosystem Acknowledgements: We are thankful to Dr. R.M. Sharma, Officer-in- Partnership Fund (CEPF), a joint initiative of l’Agence Française de charge, and Shrikant Jadhav, Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Développement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Center, Akurdi, Pune, for encouragement and helpful discussion. The Facility, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the study was self funded. The CEPF-funded freshwater assessment of the World Bank. A fundamental goal of CEPF is to ensure civil society is Western Ghats encouraged us to publish this work. We duly acknowledge engaged in biodiversity conservation. Implementation of the CEPF the help from CEPF for publication of this article. investment program in the Western Ghats is led and coordinated by the OPEN ACCESS | FREE DOWNLOAD Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). 2644 Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | June 2012 | 4(6): 2644–2652 Fishes of Krishna River S.S. Kharat et al. Image 1. Satara District is shown in grey. Sky blue area is the hydrobasin. Red line highlights the area considered for present study. reservoir (17.9810N & 73.8000E) and from an chosen. approximately 15km stretch between Dhom Dam and A total of 51 fish species belonging to 14 families downstream of Wai (17.9300N & 73.9220E) (Image 1). and 35 genera were recorded (Table 1). Of these, 15 Study was carried out for two years from May 2009 to fish species are endemic to the Western Ghats of India April 2011. Fish were collected from local fishermen while five are endemic to the Krishna River system. and local markets at Wai (17.9520N & 73.8870E). Only Out of a total 51 species, 49 fish species were recorded one or two specimens of each species were preserved from Krishna River at Wai while 42 fish species were while remaining specimens were identified in the field. recorded from Dhom reservoir. Abundance-wise Large sized common fish species and introduced fish distribution suggests that Krishna River at Wai hosts species were not collected. Collected specimens were 11 abundant, six common, 20 moderate and 12 rare preserved in 4% formaldehyde and their identification fish species. Similarly, in Dhom reservoir, there are was confirmed using available literature (Jayaram 1991; five abundant, 14 common, 16 moderate and seven 2010; Jayaram & Dhas 2000; Jayaram & Sanyal 2003; rare fish species. Menon 1987; Talwar & Jhingran 1991). Collected Of the nine species of freshwater fish recorded by fish specimens are deposited in the Zoological Survey Silas (1953) from Krishna River at Wai (Table 2), we of India, Western Regional Centre, Akurdi, Pune, could record all species. However, of the 14 species under the accession numbers from P/2628 to P/2665. recorded by Arunachalam et al. (2002) from Dhom Assuming that the fishing effort for a given type of net reservoir (Table 2), we could not record four species, (gill net or drag net) was constant, relative abundance namely Puntius conchonius, Indoreonectes evezardi, of the fish (for each type of net separately) was grossly Nemachilichthys ruppelli and Eugnathogobius categorized into four discrete categories, viz: abundant oligactis. Even though Srithar & Jayaram (1990) (76–100 % of the total catch), common (51–75 % of the recorded both Salmophasia longicauda and S. novacula total catch), moderate (26–50 % of the total catch) and from the Dhom reservoir, we could not distinguish rare (1–25 % of the total catch). Category for different two separate species in the fish catches. Therefore, species was determined for each catch separately and following the synonymization of S. longicauda with S. the most consistent category for a given species was novalula by Menon (1999) and Eschmeyer (2012), we Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | June 2012 | 4(6): 2644–2652 2645 Fishes of Krishna River S.S. Kharat et al. Table 1. List of freshwater fish from Krishna River. Abundance b a c IUCN Redlist Family/Species Krishna River Remarks d Dhom reservoir status at Wai Notopteridae Notopterus notopterus (Pallas, 1769) C C LC Cyprinidae Barilius barna (Hamilton, 1822) M - LC Barilius bendelisis (Hamilton, 1807) M - LC Catla catla (Hamilton, 1822) R C T Cirrhinus fulungee (Sykes, 1839) M M LC Cirrhinus mrigala (Hamilton, 1822) R C T Cirrhinus reba (Hamilton, 1822) M M LC Crossocheilus cf. latius (Hamilton, 1822) M M LC Cyprinus carpio Linnaeus, 1758 - C T Devario aequipinnatus (McClelland, 1839) A C LC Danio malabaricus (Jerdon, 1849) R - LC Garra mullya (Sykes, 1839) A A LC Gonoproktopterus curmuca (Hamilton, 1807) d A A WGE EN Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (Valenciennes, 1844) - M T Labeo rohita (Hamilton, 1822) R M T Labeo potail (Sykes, 1839) R R WGE EN Osteobrama vigorsii (Sykes, 1839) R M LC Puntius cf. amphibius (Valenciennes, 1842) M M DD Puntius jerdoni (Day, 1870) e R R WGE LC Puntius sahyadriensis Silas, 1953 A C WGE, KRE LC Puntius sarana subnasutus (Valenciennes, 1842) M M WGE NE Puntius ticto (Hamilton, 1822) A A LC Rasbora daniconius (Hamilton, 1822) A C LC Rohtee ogilbii (Sykes, 1839) R R WGE LC Salmophasia boopis (Day, 1874) A C WGE LC Salmophasia novacula (Valenciennes, 1840)f A A WGE LC Schismatorhynchos nukta (Sykes, 1839) R R WGE EN Tor khudree (Sykes, 1839) M C EN Tor mussullah (Sykes, 1839) R R WGE EN Parapsilorhynchidae Parapsilorhynchus discophorus Hora, 1921 M - WGE VU Parapsilorhynchus tentaculatus (Annandale, 1919) M - LC Balitoridae Acanthocobitis mooreh (Sykes, 1839) f M - LC Noemacheilus anguilla Annandale, 1919 M - WGE, KRE LC Schistura denisoni Day, 1867 C - LC Cobitidae Lepidocephalichthys thermalis (Valenciennes, 1846) A - LC Bagridae Mystus bleekeri (Day, 1877) M M LC Mystus seengtee (Sykes, 1839) C C LC Mystus malabaricus (Jerdon,