International Journal of Aquatic Biology (2014) 2(2): 85-90 

E-ISSN: 2322-5270; P-ISSN: 2383-0956 

Journal homepage: www.NPAJournals.com 
© 2013 NPAJournals. All rights reserved 

Review Article 

Feeding and breeding biology of Amblypharyngodon mola – A Review 
 

Sandipan Gupta*,1Samir Banerjee 

 
Aquaculture Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Calcutta, 35, Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata-700019, West Bengal, India 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article history: 
Received 11 March 2014 

Accepted 24 April 2014 

Available online 2 5 April 2014 

 
Keywords:  

Food 

Algae 

Spawning 

Fecundity 

Sex-ratio 

Abstract: Amblypharyngodon mola is a popular food fish of Indian sub-continent due to its high 
nutritional value. Earlier many workers have carried out studies on feeding and breeding biology of 

this fish species but consolidated information on the same is not available. So, a survey of published 

literatures on the feeding and breeding biology of A. mola has been carried out to consolidate the 

available information.  Lacunae of information has been pointed out for further study mainly on age 

group wise variation in food preference and correlation of breeding periodicity with hydrological 

parameters and photoperiod. 

 

  

Introduction 

Amblypharyngodon mola, commonly known as 
Mola Carplet or Pale Carplet is a popular food fish 

mainly in Indian sub-continent due to its high 

nutritional value (Alam et al., 2004; Saha et al., 

2009) with high protein, vitamin and mineral content 

(Zafri and Ahmed, 1981; Mazumder et al., 2008). It 

is also rich in Fe, Zn and Ca (Roos et al., 2007; 

Kongsbak et al., 2008). Earlier number of research 

works has been carried out on its feeding and 

breeding biology. The main purpose of this review 

work is to consolidate those scattered information 

and to highlight the gaps in the knowledge for further 

research work on this particular fish species.   

Amblypharyngodon mola (Cypriniformes: 
Cyprinidae) is a freshwater fish species (Fig. 1); a 

natural inhabitant of ponds, canals, beels, slow-

moving streams, ditches, baors, reservoirs and 

inundated fields (Rahman, 1989; Talwar and 

Jhingran, 1991; Menon, 1999; Saha et al., 2009). The 

species is distributed in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan 

                                                           
* Corresponding author: Sandipan Gupta 

E-mail address: sandipangupta2007@gmail.com 

Tel: +919830082686 

and Myanmar (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991); also has 

been reported from Afghanistan (Coad, 1981). 

 

Feeding biology 

Mookherjee and Basu (1946) have reported A. mola 
as a surface feeder; they have documented 

unicellular and filamentous algae, protozoans and 

rotifers as preferred food types for this fish species. 

Das and Moitra (1963) have reported A. mola as 
herbivorous fish. Piska et al. (1991), Mamun et al. 

(2004), Gupta and Banerjee (2013b) and Mondal and 

Kaviraj (2013) have also documented herbivorous 

feeding habit of this fish species. Piska et al. (1991) 

also have reported it as a bottom feeder; algae have 

been documented as the main food for this fish 

species. Mamun et al. (2004) have reported 

phytoplankton preference for this fish species; they 

also have documented Chlorophyceae as the mostly 

preferred food class for A. mola; debris with mud 
which have been observed in the gut content of the 

studied specimens by Mamun et al. (2004) have been 



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Gupta and Banerjee/ International Journal of Aquatic Biology (2014) 2(2): 85-90 

considered as the secondary food; while zooplankton 

and semi-digested food have been considered as 

incidental food for the fish species. Gupta and 

Banerjee (2013b) have reported phytoplankton as the 

basic food and Chlorophyceae as the mostly 

preferred food class for this fish species. Mondal and 

Kaviraj (2013) have reported algae as the main food; 

they have documented high preference for 

Chlorophyceae followed by Myxophyceae, 

Bacillariophyceae, Cyanophyceae and 

Euglenophyceae for this fish species. Dewan (1973) 

and Chowdhury (1999) have reported phytoplankton 

as the most dominant food group for this fish species. 

Mustafa (1991) has documented blue green algae 

along with planktonic crustacean and rotifera to form 

the main food of A. mola. Miah and Siddiqui (1992) 
have reported mola as omnivore with higher feeding 

preferences for debris and plant foods. Suresh et al. 

(2007) have reported that A. mola feeds 
predominantly on phytoplankton and Myxophyceae 

has been reported as the mostly preferred food class 

for this fish species. Mondol et al. (2013) have 

reported Chlorophyceae as the mostly preferred food 

class for A. mola followed by Bacillariophyceae, 
Cyanophyceae and Euglenophyceae in rice field 

ecosystem of Bangladesh.  

Piska et al. (1991) have reported size group wise 

variance of food preference in A. mola; small and 
medium size group fishes have been reported to 

prefer algae but in higher size groups algae 

consumption has been reported to be less than that of 

the higher aquatic plants. They have documented 

low consumption of diatoms in higher size groups. 

Gupta and Banerjee (2013b) have also studied the 

size group wise food preference, but have not found 

any significant change in food preference along 

different size groups. Mondal and Kaviraj (2013) 

have reported variation in food preference according 

to different weight class; lower weight class have 

been reported to prefer more algae than higher 

weight class; higher weight class though preferred 

algae have been reported to consume high amount of 

other plant materials, debris and mud than the lower 

weight class. 

Mamun et al. (2004) have reported high feeding 

intensity in A. mola but have not correlated it with 
breeding periodicity. Piska et al. (1991) have 

reported that feeding intensity is low during the 

spawning season and high during pre-spawning and 

post-spawning period of A. mola; this observation 
has later been supported by Suresh et al. (2007), 

Gupta and Banerjee (2013b) and Mondal and Kaviraj 

(2013). Piska and Waghray (1986) also have 

reported high incidence of empty guts coincided with 

the spawning season of A. mola.  
 

Breeding biology 

Sexual dimorphism and sex ratio: Except Hoque and 
Rahman (2008), none have documented any 

information on the sexual dimorphism of A. mola. 

Figure 1. Mola Carplet, Amblypharyngodon mola. 



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Gupta and Banerjee/ International Journal of Aquatic Biology (2014) 2(2): 85-90 

Hoque and Rahman (2008) have reported that males 

and females are different in color; males are 

comparatively brighter than females. The color of 

females is light and they are large in size. In case of 

mature female the abdomen is soft and swollen, 

pelvic fins are smooth and caudal fin is deeply 

forked. During the spawning season mature females 

are with distended abdomen by which they can be 

easily recognized. Suresh et al. (2007) also have 

reported the comparative larger size of females than 

males.  

Afroze and Hossain (1983) have reported the 

average sex-ratio in population of A. mola as 1:1.67 
for males and females of this fish species. Piska and 

Waghray (1986) also have observed predominance 

of females in the population of this fish species. 

Afroze et al. (1991) have reported significant female 

dominance over male in A. mola. Azadi and Mamun 
(2004) also have reported the significant dominance 

of females over males in the population of A. mola. 
They have documented the monthly variation of sex 

ratio between males and females to be ranged from 

1:1.15 to 1:3.64 with an average value of 1:2.078. 

Suresh et al. (2007) have reported significant 

variation in sex ratio of A. mola in different months 
from the expected ratio of 1:1 and the ratio of male 

and female fish have been reported to vary from 1:1 

to 1:12. Number of males has been reported to be 

very low to nil during spawning and post-spawning 

season; and they have concluded that this may be due 

to the spawning and post spawning mortality of 

males. Hoque and Rahman (2008) have also reported 

the female dominance in population of A. mola; they 
have reported an average ratio of 1:1.71 for males 

and females of this fish species. Saha et al. (2009) 

have reported the average sex-ratio in the population 

of A. mola as 1:2.03 for males and females. Gupta 
and Banerjee (2013a) have reported the average sex 

ratio of 1:3.04 for males and females of this fish 

species while Mondal and Kaviraj (2013) have 

documented the ratio of 1:1.9 for the same. 

Length at first maturity: Suresh et al. (2007) have 
reported the length at first maturity for male and 

female of A. mola as 5.1-5.6 cm and 3.9-4.4 cm, 

respectively; early maturation of female than male 

has been reported by them. On the other hand, Hoque 

and Rahman (2008) have reported early maturation 

of male than female; they have documented the 

length of smallest mature male and female mola as 

4.8 cm and 5.5 cm, respectively. Gupta and Banerjee 

(2013a) later also have supported this view; they 

have reported 5-5.5 cm and 5.5-6 cm as length at first 

sexual maturity for male and female fish, 

respectively.  

Fecundity: Mookherjee and Basu (1946) have 
reported the fecundity of Amblypharyngodon mola 
as 500; same has been documented by Bhuiyan 

(1964). Dewan and Doha (1979) have reported the 

fecundity to be ranged from 1,021-13,812. Parveen 

(1984) has reported the average fecundity of A. mola 
as 3,601. Misra and Jain (1985) have documented the 

fecundity to be ranged from 1,210-16,072. Afroze 

and Hossain (1990) have reported the fecundity of 

A. mola to be ranged from 400-8,550. Mustafa 
(1991) has documented the average fecundity of A. 
mola as 738. Azadi and Mamun (2004) have reported 
the fecundity to be ranged from 1,280-13,679 with 

an average of 5,182.67 ± 3,731.51. Suresh et al. 

(2007) have reported the fecundity to be ranged from 

21-16,867 while the relative fecundity range has 

been reported to be 7-2,122. Hoque and Rahman 

(2008) have reported the lowest and highest mean 

fecundity of mola as 1,023 ± 625 and 6,806 ± 125 in 

size groups ranging from 5.0-5.5 cm and 8.1-8.5 cm 

respectively in pond and 1,220 ± 550 and 6,923 ± 

425 for the same size groups in beel of Bangladesh. 

Saha et al. (2009) have reported the fecundity to be 

ranged from 1,291-12,737 with mean value of 

5,751.73 ± 3,321.73. Gupta and Banerjee (2013c) 

have reported the fecundity to be ranged from 1,014-

9,690 with an average of 4,592.64. Mondal and 

Kaviraj (2013) have documented fecundity range of 

3,785-12,590 for the fish species.  

Maturation and spawning: Azadi and Mamun (2004) 
have reported three gonadal maturity stages 

(immature, maturing and ripening) in female A. mola 
while Hoque and Rahman (2008) have documented 

five maturity stages (immature, maturing, mature, 



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Gupta and Banerjee/ International Journal of Aquatic Biology (2014) 2(2): 85-90 

ripe and spent) for both female and male mola. Gupta 

and Banerjee (2013a) have documented five 

maturity stages (immature, maturing, mature, ripe 

and spent) for female and four maturity stages 

(immature, mature, ripe and spent) for male mola.  

Piska and Waghray (1986) have reported breeding 

season of A. mola in Andhra Pradesh from February 
to July. In West Bengal, April to October has been 

documented as the breeding season by Suresh et al. 

(2007) while Gupta and Banerjee (2013a) have 

reported April to December as the breeding season 

with two spawning months in June and November. 

Mondal and Kaviraj (2013) have documented July as 

the spawning month for this fish species in West 

Bengal. Rahman (1989) has reported May to October 

as the spawning months for this species in 

Bangladesh. According to Afroze and Hossain 

(1990), August is the peak breeding season of mola 

while Parveen (1984) has reported the breeding 

season of mola from June to October/November in 

Bangladesh. Kohinoor et al. (2003) have reported 

May-July and September-October as spawning 

months for this fish species in Bangladesh. Azadi 

and Mamun (2004) have reported mola as a multiple 

spawner and they have documented July, August, 

October and March as the spawning months in 

Bangladesh. Hoque and Rahman (2008) have stated 

April to October as the breeding season in 

Bangladesh; May and September have been reported 

as the spawning months by them. Saha et al. (2009) 

have reported March to August as the breeding 

season in Bangladesh for this fish species. 

 

Conclusion 

From in-depth review of literatures, it is evident that 

number of works has been carried out on feeding and 

breeding biology of Amblypharyngodon mola 
mainly in Bangladesh and India but few lacunae are 

there which must be investigated to benefit fishery 

of this fish species.  

Feeding habit and food preference have been 

properly documented only for the adult fishes along 

with size group wise and weight class wise food 

preference; but no such detail documentation is there 

regarding any such significant difference in food 

preference along with age groups. On the other hand, 

there is ample information existing on the breeding 

biology of this fish species; female dominance over 

male in the population has been reported by all the 

previous workers and most of them have reported 

mola as a high fecund fish. Though differences in 

breeding periodicity and spawning frequency have 

been observed in the earlier documented information 

but that too is without any significant study on 

correlation of breeding periodicity with hydrological 

parameters and photoperiod. So, there is ample scope 

for study in this area for more meaningful 

contribution on feeding and breeding biology of 

Amblypharyngodon mola. 
 

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