The urogenital papillae as an indicator of sexual maturity in male African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, (Burchell, 1822)

The present study investigated a non‐invasive method based on macroscopic morphological features of male Clarias gariepinus for the assessment of sexual maturity stage. As African catfish cannot be stripped for semen as in most other fish species; they have to be killed to obtain semen from the testes. This method could be used to ensure that males used to obtain sperm are sexually mature to increase the concentration and quality of mature sperm for egg fertilization in the production of C. gariepinus. Morphological features including the length and width of the urogenital papillae (UGP), an external secondary sexual characteristic of C. gariepinus (n = 89) were measured and calculated as a percentage of total body length. The urogenital papillae length (LUGP) and width (WUGP) index of each fish were used and compared with the macroscopic and microscopic maturity stage of the testes. The results revealed that although positive, a significant correlation does not exist between the LUGP or WUGP and maturity stage of the testes. Therefore, although this procedure would be valuable as an initial non‐invasive assessment of maturity, it does not provide an accurate or reliable indication of the maturity stage of the fish.