
2Revista de Biología Tropical, ISSN: 2215-2075 Vol. 71: e51734, enero-diciembre 2023 (Publicado Feb. 22, 2023)
INTRODUCTION
Rita rita (Hamilton, 1822) belongs to the
family Bagridae, which is distributed in the
freshwaters of India as well as many other
countries in the Asian continent. The target fish
species has high market value on account of its
consumer preference, nutritional value, orna-
mental value and palatability (Gupta & Baner-
jee, 2014; Mohanty et al., 2015). There has been
only one report (Tamubi et al., 1990) on the
age and growth characteristics of this species,
wherein no consideration of precision of age
estimates was taken into account. Molur and
Walker (1998) categorised it as a threatened
fish of the Indian subcontinent and suggested
that it could face the risk of extinction mainly
due to overfishing and loss of breeding sites.
Bangladesh, The International Union for Con-
servation of Nature (IUCN) (2015) categorizes
fish as endangered in Bangladesh but globally
as Least Concern. Therefore, the population of
Rita rita should be scientifically managed and
protected by undertaking suitable measures.
Age estimation of fish is a necessary first
step in age-based fish population assessment
and successful resource management (Maceina
& Sammons, 2006). The ability to obtain precise
age estimates is critical for estimating dynamic
rate functions like mortality and recruitment
(Khan & Khan, 2020). A precision measure is
important for evaluating the relative simplicity
of determining the age of a given hard struc-
ture, examining the reliability of an individual’s
age estimations, and measuring the ager’s level
of skill relative to others (Campana, 2001). By
incorporating a validation method, errors in
estimating the age of fish can be minimized.
There is an alternative validation technique i.e.,
comparing the age estimates between differ-
ent hard anatomical structures that potentially
provide valuable insights into the accuracy and
inaccuracy of age-estimating structures (Sylves-
ter & Berry Jr, 2006).
Researchers have compared age enumer-
ated from different hard structures in fresh-
water fishes such as Channa punctata (Khan
et al., 2013), Labeo bata (Khan et al., 2015), C.
striata (Khan et al., 2017), Sperata aor (Nazir
& Khan, 2020), Leuciscus vorax (Rashid &
Basusta, 2021), Cycleptus elongatus (Radford
et al., 2021), Salvelinus namaycush (Osborne
et al., 2022) to quantify precision and detect
biasesrelated to each structure.
Amongst several methods available to vali-
date fish age interpretations (Campana, 2001),
Marginal Increment Analysis (MIA) is one of
the extensively utilized methods (Campana,
2001). This technique is based on the notion
that growth rings are produced annually, and
the width of the outer ring will depict an
annual sinusoidal cycle if plotted against the
month of capture. (Campana, 2001; Okamura
et al., 2013).
Age estimation in several fish species has
been validated using MIA for example, Merluc-
cius hubbsi (Costa et al., 2018); Brachyplatys-
toma rousseauxii (Hauser et al., 2018). Several
studies have successfully used the von Bertalanffy
Growth Function model (VBGF) to estimate
growth in a variety of fish species, such as Schizo-
pyge niger, S. curvifrons and Schizothorax esocinus
(Sabah & Khan, 2014), Channa punctata (Khan
et al., 2019), Gerres subfasciatus (Gray, 2019),
Catla catla (Brraich & Kaur, 2022). The basic
biological information required to devise sci-
entifically sound management policies for the
Rita rita population remains warranted, par-
ticularly those involving precise age estimation
and growth trends under changing conditions
across all of the fish’s primary habitats. Otoliths
have previously been used to investigate age
and growth studies in Rita rita (Tamubi et al.,
Conclusión: La especie alcanza un crecimiento moderado en estos ríos, dónde las vértebras son la estructura de
estimación etaria recomendada, seguido de, en caso de ser necesario, los otolitos segmentados, otolitos enteros y
huesos operculares. Debe evitarse el uso de espinas pectorales, especialmente en peces de mayor edad.
Palabras clave: vértebras; otolitos; precisión de la edad; VBGF; Análisis del Incremento Marginal.