The present study was carried out to investigate the embryonic and larval development of freshwater catfish Rita rita. The mature eggs and sperms were collected by using artificial insemination technique and fertilized eggs were incubated in mini circular hatchery with provision of continuous water supply. The fertilized eggs were transparent, demarsal, spherical, non-adhesive and brownish in colour with a diameter ranging between 1.3 to 1.6 mm. First cleavage occurred within 25-30 min post-fertilization at temperature of 28±1°C. Hatching started 22 h post-fertilization and completed within 24 h at the same temperature range. Newly hatched larvae were 2.0 mm in length devoid of mouth and pigmentation and started feeding within 48-60 h post-hatching. To date, this is the first time the early embryonic and larval development of freshwater catfish R. rita is described. Thus the findings of the present study provide valuable information that may help establishing the large scale seed production technique of Rita.

The experiment was conducted to investigate the morphological status of the critically endangered riverine catfish Rita rita using morphometric and meristic traits. About 158 species of Rita were collected from the old Brahmaputra river in Mymensingh district and were studied in the laboratory of the Fisheries Biology and Genetics Department, Bangladesh Agricultural University. Measurement of length and weight of Rita were recorded by using measuring scale and electric balance respectively. Significant curvilinear relationship existed between total length and other morphometric characters and between head length and other characters of the head. Relationships between total length and various body measurements of the fish were highly significant (p < 0.01) except the relationship between total length and pelvic fin length of male fish (p < 0.05). In case of meristic characters-dorsal fin rays, pelvic fin rays, pectoral fin rays, anal fin rays, caudal fin rays, number of vertebrae and branchiostegal rays were found to be more or less similar except slight differences. The values of condition factors (k) in the total length body-weight relationships for female and male were found to be 0.41 and 0.38, respectively. The mean values of relative condition factors (kn) were 1.0 and 1.005 for female and male, respectively.