Morphometric Characteristics of Asian Catfish, Hemibagrus wyckii (Bleeker, 1858) (Bagridae), from the Riau Province of Indonesia

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Asian Catfish (Hemibagrus wyckii) is an important fish having both food and a high price in the market. These species are categorized as a carnivorous freshwater finfish native in Indonesia and is vulnerable to endangered status. This study was carried out to identify the morphometric characteristics of Hemibagrus wyckii (H. wyckii) from the Koto Panjang Reservoir, Kampar Kanan and Kampar Kiri rivers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-five fish were collected from each sampling site. The morphometric characteristics were analyzed using the truss morphometric method. Twenty-nine characteristics were measured to obtain the morphometric characteristics of this species. Morphometric data of H. wyckii were analyzed using one-way ANOVA (SPSS version 17.0). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate the relationship between different factors and morphometric characteristics. The distribution across different habitats was measured by component canonical analysis (CCA) and genetic distance was analyzed by hierarchical cluster. RESULTS: The average standard lengths of H. wyckii from the Koto Panjang Reservoir, Kampar Kanan and Kampar Kiri rivers (Mean±SD) were 428±15.78, 432.52±66.11 and 425.86±50.41 mm, respectively. Twenty-nine morphometric characteristics were measured. There was a 68.96% difference obtained in samples collected at the Koto Panjang Reservoir and Kampar Kanan river. There was a 95.55% difference obtained in the Koto Panjang Reservoir, Kampar Kiri river and a 100% difference obtained in the Kampar Kanan and Kampar Kiri rivers. The main differences in morphometric characteristics included inter orbital distance, length of adipose-fin base, predorsal length, length of front dorsal fin-front pelvic and depth of caudal peduncle. The Mahalanobis distance between fish from the Koto Panjang Reservoir and Kampar Kanan river demonstrated that both types originated from a single population. CONCLUSION: It was concluded that more favorable morphometric characteristics of H. wyckii were found in the Kampar Kanan river compared to those from the Koto Panjang Reservoir and Kampar Kiri river.