The Freshwater Mud Eel, Monopterus Cuchia – a Review

The freshwater mud eel Monopterus cuchia is a tasteful, nutritionally rich and medicinally valuable fish with high export demands which can play a unique role for socio-economic welfare of the area. This fish was rich in nature of Bangladesh, however, the populations of the freshwater eel are declining at an alarming rate from the natural water bodies due to several reasons specially for overfishing while increasing the population of this fish completely depends on natural reproduction, and thus this fish are recorded as rare species in Bangladeshi habitats. Due to its high market demands and this fish is now a red listed species in Bangladesh, so, different steps should be taken for conserving this fish. As no positive responds of this fish with artificial breeding for seed production it is necessary to learn more about its life history in details. Therefore, this review was made considering its distribution, populations, taxonomy, habit and habitats, morphology, physiology, biology including reproduction strategies, genetics and molecular biology, biochemical compositions, toxicological observations, health concern, culture practice, capture fishery, consumable status in Bangladesh, marketing and business as well as socio-economic conditions of this freshwater mud eel in Bangladesh. This review is considered from the literature review of the PhD work of first author.