OTOLITH MORPHOLOGY OF SIX CYPRINID SPECIES WITH THE USE IN SPECIES AND STOCK DISCRIMINATIONS

Morphological characteristics of the otoliths of six cyprinid species, Hemiculter tchangi, Rhinogobio ventralis, Coreius guichenoti, Gobiobotia filifer, Xenophysobotia boulengeri, and Carassius auratus, had been described and measured.The stepwise discriminant analysis was used to distinguish these six species.The classification success for H.tchangi, R.ventralis, C.guichenoti, G.filifer and C.auratus was 100%, and X.boulengeri 90.91 % with the average of 99.1 % for all six species.So the otolith traits of fish might be one of useful tools for discriminating the fish species.The classification accuracy of C.auratus stocks from three locations reached 68.9 percent on average.It demonstrated that some significant differences in otoliths did exist among three C.auratus stocks.