Fish Biodiversity and Abundance in River Taraba, Taraba State, Nigeria

The fish fauna of River Taraba, Taraba State, Nigeria showed a total of 60,574 fishes belonging to 20 families and 50 species. The family Cichlidae dominated the catch with 22.96%, followed by Clariidae (14.26%), Distichodontidae (12.61%), Morchochidae (10.55%), Characidae (9.57%), Schilbeidae (7.29%), Bagridae (6.11%), Mormyridae (5.79%), Alestidae (2.52%), Claroteidae (2.43%), Cyprinidae (1.33%), Protopteridae (1.23%), Osteoglossidae (1.20%) while the families Polypteridae, Citharinidae, Centropomidae, Hepsitidae Gymnarchidae, Channidae, and Malapteruridae each contributed less than 1%. Mormyridae were the most diversified family and were represented by 7 species; Mormyrus rume (3.88%), Petrocephalus bane (0.52%), Hyperopisus bebe (0.42%), Marcusenius abadii (0.30%) Mormyrus anguilloides (0.25%), Mormyrus macrothalmus (0.23%), Hippopotamyrus psittacus (0.19%). The most abundant species were Tilapia galilaeus (10.13%) while the least were Labeo coubie and Malapterurus electricuswhich contributed 0.12% each. Tella landing site was more diverse and evenly distributed H 3.3973; E 0.3659 while Wurbo landing site stood out in terms of species richness with 17,964 species.