Due to undergoing urbanization trend worldwide, distance between city inhabitants and nature is increasing. Urban greenery/forestry is one of the ways to bridge this gap between people and nature. Most of the Indian cities are far behind in quality as well as quantity of urban forests than their counterpart in Europe and America. High population density is one of the reasons for underdevelopment of urban greenery sector. India can learn a lot from Chinese model of urban forestry development as both of them are the topmost populated countries of the world. Recently, some of the Indian cities like Chandigarh, Gandhinagar and Delhi have shown some improvement in this field. Status of urban greenery in some of the Indian cities has been discussed in the paper.

One hundred thirty eight fish species were collected during a systematic survey of 35 rivers in Arunachal Pradesh state, India, in March 2004 to March 2008. Based on this survey and on literature review we developed a checklist with 213 fish species for the state. We have added 43 species to the previous record of 170 species. This study confirmed the occurrence of five new species described by previous investigations and encompasses the discovery of two new species, although the taxonomic status of 27 species is uncertain and requires additional study.

Psilorhynchoides arunachalensis, new species is described from the Brahmaputra basin in Arunachal Pradesh of Northeastern India. It belongs to the Psilorhynchus homaloptera and P. pseudecheneis group, for which genus Psilorhynchoides was erected by Yazdani et al. (1990) because of their morphological and osteological distinctiveness from Psilorhynchus. The new species is differentiated by the following characters: eight or nine simple pectoral fin rays; more number of vertebrae 43-45 and an intermediate number of lateral line scales 42-44 between the valid species P. homaloptera and P. pseudecheneis (38-41 and 48-50 respectively).

Arunachal Pradesh being rich in fishery resources biophysically, the status of the fish diversity is not known from all the water bodies. A case study was undertaken in the river Siyom (28°11′25′′-28°10′52′′N and 94°45′17′′-97°47′51′′E) of West Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh from 2002 to 2004 with the fragmentary work till 2007. For the purpose, sampling of fish was done from the river time to time using local contraption along with modern nets. A total of 44 species of fishes belongs to 9 families were identified. Fishes of family Cyprinidae were found to be dominant followed by Balitoridae. Some of the fish species were found very rare in the river, which may be due to various anthropogenic factors. Therefore, in addition to social restriction on community fishing some awareness measures need to be taken to prevent the destructive fishing activities in the river.DOI: 10.3126/on.v8i1.4324

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