Quantitative Characterization of Farmed African Cat Fish (Clarias gariepinus) in Okitipupa, Ondo State, Nigeria

Data on body weight and morphometric traits from one hundred and fifty-eight (158) live African cat fish sampled from two locations around Okitipupa within Ondo State, Nigeria was subjected to simple statistics analysis, Pearson’s correlation and analysis of variance to test for the effect of sex, age, location and body size on the body weight and the morphometric traits. The coefficient of variation (CV) varied among the parameters were considered. Results obtained revealed that body weight had the highest value (46.18%) in the adult fish while it was 22.76% in juvenile fish. Insignificant effect of sex (p > 0.05) was observed in both adult and juvenile fish in all the parameters considered. Age had a very highly significant effect (p < 0.0001) on all the parameters considered. The adult had higher values compared to the juvenile in body weight and the morphometric traits. Effect of body size was significant (P < 0.0001) on body weight and morphometric traits, the estimates increased from small size to medium to big size. Significant effect (P < 0.0001) of location was observed only on body weight, total length, standard length and head length. The fish from farm A had higher values compared to farm B. The correlation coefficients among the traits for juvenile and adult fish ranged between low to high and were significant (P < 0.05, P < 0.01 and P < 0.0001). Morphometric traits can be used in characterizing African catfish based on age and body size.