COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERMUSCULAR BONES IN HYBRID F1, F2 OF (C. ALBURNUS) (♀)(M. AMBLYCEPHALA) (♂) AND ITS PARENTS

To study the intermuscular bone (IB) of the new hybrid strain of (female C. alburnus)(male M. amblycephala), we analyzed the number, morphology, and distribution of IB in four fishes including topmouth culter (C. alburnus) (Abbr.CA), blunt nose bream (M. amblycephala) (Abbr.MA), F1 hybrid of female C. alburnus)(male M. amblycephala) (Abbr.H-F1) and self-crossing of F1 hybrid of (female C. alburnus)(male M. amblycephala) (Abbr.H-F2). The results indicated that CA had the largest number of IBs ranged from 134 to 139 (X=136.8), and the MA has the fewest number of IB ranged from 121 to 129 (X=124.2), and the number of IBs in H-F1 and F2 were at the middle level, which were ranged from 129 to 134 (X=131.6) and 127 to 134 (X=130.1), respectively. The average number of IBs in H-F1, F2 and CA, MA was significant difference (P0.05). The average number of IBs were 0.8024 (H-F1), 0.7953 (CA), 0.7763 (MA) and 0.7744 (H-F2). There are seven shape categories of the IBs, including non-forked (I), one-end-unequal-bi-fork (卜), one-end-equal-bi-fork (Y), one-end-multi-fork, two-end-bi-fork, two-end-multi-fork and tree-branch types. The number of epineural bone was bigger and more complex than epipleural bone. The number and shape of IB were similar but not equal between the left and right sides of the body. The morphology of IBs in the ante-rior was more complexed than that in the posterior of the body. Compared with the maternal, all the four strains signifi-cantly reduced the total number of IBs, the average number of IBs in each sarcomere and the trunk under the axis muscle, which greatly improved the eating quality of the fish. These results imply that intergeneric hybridization of CA and MA would gain new strains with fewer IBs, high eating quality and graceful form.