Arius maculatus established a distinguished morphological characteristic by having
forked caudal fin with a single black spotted adipose
fin present in between the dorsal fin and caudal
peduncle (Fig. 1a, b). The large black spot starting
from the base to the tips of the adipose fin are the
prominent systematic characteristic of Arius maculates.
Both pectoral and dorsal fin possesses a leading hollow
serrated poisonous spine. Maxillary barbels present
usually in 3 pairs and rarely 2 pairs. This species has
no nasal barbels. As in other similar genera,
conspicuous bony plates present on head and near
dorsal fin. Comparative key to this species and other
species of Ariidae in the Malaysian coastal water are
as shown in Table 1. Species name with asterisk
denoted the common co-existing species found
nowadays with Arius maculatus.
Table 2 showed a general meristic counts relative
to the total length (TL) and head length(HL) (expressed
as %) for Arius maculatus species. The results showed
that the meristic characteristic of Arius maculatus in
Matang mangrove reserves was closely similar and
comparable to the meristic counts of the similar adult’s
species elsewhere [