Relationship between food habit and alimentary tract and gill rackers morphology of mullet Liza klunzingeri from Shatt Al-Basrah canal

Abstract

Food composition and morphological of alementary tract and gill rakers relations were studied for mullet Liza klunzingeri which collected from Shatt Al-Basrah canal during July 2008 until June 2009.There was a correlation between mouth gap, ratio of mouth length to total length (ML/TL), intestine length with total length, while the was no correlation between the ratio of intestine length to total length (IL/TL) with total length. A positive correlation (p=0.037) was found between gill raker numbers and the percentage of eggs witch formed part of L. klunzingeri diet. The linear relation between morphological characters were more accurate than the exponential relation. It was concluded that it was possible to use some morphological characters to recognized food habits of klunzingeri mullet.