Journal of Fisheries & Livestock Production
Open Access

Research Article

Morphological variations of Tilapia guineensis (Bleeker 1862) and Sarotherodon melanotheron (Ruppell1852) (Pisces: Cichlidea) from Badagry and Lagos lagoon, South-West, Nigeria.

Kuton MP^1* and Adeniyi BT²

¹Department of Marine Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos State, Nigeria

²Institute of Food Security, Environmental Resources and Agriculture Research (IFSERAR), Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author:

Kuton MP
Department of Marine Sciences
Faculty of Science
University of Lagos, Akoka
Lagos State, Nigeria
Tel: +234 8033377615
E-mail: mpkuton@unilag.edu.ng, mpkuton@yahoo.com

Received Date: January 04, 2014; Accepted Date: April 17, 2014; Published Date: May 06, 2014

Citation: Kuton MP, Adeniyi BT (2014) Morphological variations of Tilapia guineensis (Bleeker 1862) and Sarotherodon melanotheron (Ruppell1852) (Pisces: Cichlidea) from Badagry and Lagos lagoon, South-West, Nigeria. J Fisheries Livest Prod 2:112. doi:10.4172/2332-2608.1000112

Copyright: © 2014 Kuton MP, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Sarotherodon melanotheron (Ruppell) and Tilapia guineensis (Bleeker) are two dominant cichlids in Badagry and Lagos Lagoon, South-western Nigeria. Comparative racial studies were investigated among these species using multivariate analysis of nine morphometric characters and nine meristic counts of 100 specimens each. The results showed that they were phenotypically separable populations of the same species with some level of divergence in morphometric characters. The data were analysed using independent sample t-test after allometric test revealed significant differences (p < 0.05) in body depth, caudal peduncle depth, and number of gill rakers in Sarotherodon melanotheron while vertebrae, caudal peduncle depth and right gill raker in Tilapia guineensis which were suggested to have occurred as a result of environmental fluctuations, genetic diversity and difference in salinity in the two water bodies.

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