New Record of Stinging Catfish, Heteropneustes microps (Gunther, 1864) from Vellayani Fresh Water Lake, Kerala, Southwest Coast of India

This paper documents the first record of the occurrence of stinging catfishes in Vellayani Freshwater Lake at Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala, the southern part of Western Ghats region, which are native to Asia and endemic to Sri Lanka. Vellayani Lake, an important wetland in south India, is a natural habitat of waterfowls and the livelihood of about 100 traditional fishermen depends on the fish resources of this lake. The one year fish diversity study from June 2013 to May 2014, revealed the occurrence of the stinging catfish in the lake. The morphological taxonomy proved that the specimen is Heteropneustes microps, Gunther, 1864 (Nelson, J. S, 1994, Allaby, M, 1991, Arunachalam et al. , 1999, U Fowler 1937, Devi and Raghunathan, 1999, Easa & Shaji, 2003, Hubbs & Lagler, 2004) of the family Heteropneustidae. About 42 species of freshwater fishes have been documented from the lake by various authors, primarily from the Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala (Biju Kumar et. al, 2013). From Heteropneustidae family, Heteropneustes fossilis (Bloch, 1794) had already been identified as the native of this lake. Another species, Heteropneustes microps (Gunther, 1864) is reported for the first time from this second largest fresh water lake in Kerala.