A Review of the Freshwater Fish Fauna of West Bengal, India with Suggestions for Conservation of the Threatened and Endemic Species

The present paper is primarily aimed to up date the list of the Freshwater Fishes of West Bengal in view of the changes in the nomenclature of the fishes after the publication of the fishes from this state (Sen, 1992). Sen (op. cit.) recorded 171 species (he had listed 172 species, one species was recorded twice in the list) from West Bengal. Some of the fishes, which were omitted in the list of the fishes, have been incorporated in this communication. This shows that West Bengal contains 239 species belonging to 147 genera, 49 families and 15 orders of freshwater fishes. Since West Bengal is one of the eight maritime states of our country lying on the northeastern coast of our country, some marine or estuarine fishes are regularly found along with the freshwater fishes of this state. Considering all the threatened and endemic freshwater fishes of this state, some conservation measures have been suggested for their protection and conservation in this paper.