3.1. fish species diversity in the major rivers of nigeria | 水產百科網

Fishspeciesdiversityinnaturallakes,wetlandsandtheirinflowingrivers...1Inthistable,asalsoelsewhereinthisdocument,scientificnamesarethosegiven ...

Welman (1948) identified 181 species of fish from the major river systems of Nigeria and Lake Chad including some estuarine and marine species which frequent the rivers. Banks et.al. (1965, in White E. ed., 1965) identified and described about 139 species of fish along the upper Niger within the then proposed Kainji Reservoir Basin. Reed et.al. (1967) also identified and described about 160 fish species within the then northern region of Nigeria. Since then, numerous studies both in Kainji and other man-made and natural lakes in Nigeria have led to the description of new species and identification of species described earlier by scientists associated with the Kainji Lake Research Project and the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research.

For convenience of comparison, the species diversity analysis is presented here in three main categories: