Fish Biodiversity and Abundance in River Taraba Taraba State Nigeria

The fish fauna of River Taraba Taraba State Nigeria showed a total of 60574 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 electricus which contributed 0.12% each. Tella landing site was more diverse and evenly distributed Hˈ3.3973; E 0.3659 while Wurbo landing site stood out in terms of species richness with 17964 species.