Abstract
Scales are commonly used for investigations of fish age determination. However, there is a lack of appropriate methods on making scale specimens for small fish species. Three methods included the warm water immersion method, alkaline immersion method and a new method invented by us were introduced in this study. Effects of age determination for three kinds of small fishes containing Danio rerio, Pseudorasbora parva and Paramisgurnus dabryanus through using scale specimens made by the three methods were compared. Results obtained here showed that the warm water immersion method was not applicable for making scale specimens of small fish. However, the alkaline immersion method and the new method were more suitable, while the new method was especially suitable for making scale specimens of P. dabryanus whose scales presented complex structures.
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Acknowledgments
The work involving animals was conducted in key lab of freshwater animal breeding at Huazhong Agricultural University in China. It is the personal goal of the researchers at this university to handle animals with care and use humane methods of euthanasia. The methods used in this study are listed as an approved method by the American Fisheries Society (2004). This study was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (project number: 31201719) to Xiaojuan Cao and Chinese National College Students Innovation Experiment Program (project number: 20130504039).
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Songqian Huang and Yeke Wang contributed equally.
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Huang, S., Wang, Y., Zheng, X. et al. Comparative analysis of three methods of making scale specimens for small fish. Environ Biol Fish 98, 697–703 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-014-0299-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-014-0299-7