Differentiating three Indian shads by applying shape analysis from digital images.

Tenualosa ilisha, T. toli and Hilsa kelee are three Indian shad species of the family Clupeidae. In past, relationships among these shads have been explored in few morphological studies but still remain poorly understood. In this study, 120 specimens of three shad species were collected from the wild and a truss network system of 13 landmarks was interconnected to yield 77 size-adjusted characters. Discriminant function analysis (DFA) produced 13 discriminating variables in delineating the three species. The landmark based morphometric distance between origin of dorsal fin and posterior end of eye was the most important character in discriminating the three species. Three prominent characters extracted from DFA (distance between posterior end of operculum and posterior end of eye, distance between origin of dorsal fin and posterior end of eye and distance between insertion of pelvic fin and end of operculum) were used as traditional morphometric characters and their ratio to standard length were found significant in differentiating the three shad species. The present study strongly supports the efficiency of landmark-based morphological characters generated from digital images in discriminating the species and can be used as a rapid diagnostic tool in recognizing them.