Morphometric characterization of Nile, Thai and Hawaiian Red Tilapia.

Abstract

The study examined morphometric characterization and phenotypic variations of Nile Red Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), Thai Red Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus x Oreochromis mossambicus) and Hawaiian Red Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus × Oreochromis urolepis hornorum). A total of 90
samples of each of the test fish were collected from private farms in Nigeria. They were taken to the Wet Laboratory of Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture of Delta State University, Abraka Nigeria. A total of 14 body parts were measured by one person using buss truss protocols. The measured parts were subjected to discriminate analysis on SPSS version 23 and on Past software version 10.1. The countries or origin of the fish species were the independent variables while the measured body parts remained the dependent variables. Results inferred that, examined fish had close ancestor. However, the total length, standard length, body length and maximum mouth length could be used to discriminate this fish into their base population. Similarly, strong loadings on the canonical discriminate function were observed in the first and second functions indicating that the differences shown by the total length, standard length, body length and maximum mouth length are noticeable on close examination of the fish.