Lower risk near threatened in India (CAMP, 1998). Endangered in Bangladesh due to over exploitation and habitat loss (IUCN Bangladesh, 2000). Silond catfish used as popular delicious food fish having good taste (Chondar, 1999) and high protein content (Ray et al, 2014). It also a game fish (Chondar, 1999) and recently has also been documented to be exported from India as ornamental fish (Gupta, 2014). It has a great commercial importance of Stanley reservoir that is located on river Cauvery at Mettur in Tamil Nadu province in India (Yadav, 1999). Flesh is not very wholesome (Bhuiyan, 1964). Aquaculture practice has not been developed so far and the total demand for this fish in the domestic market is met through capture from wild populations, thus the effective conservation of wild stocks is crucial (Mishra et al., 2009). Body is elongated, devoid of scale; herring-shaped in younger stages and bulky at the belly in adult. A median fontanel is extending along the entire length of the head; shallow in front and somewhat deeper behind. Occipital process tapers to a fine point posteriorly and separated from the basal bone of the dorsal fin. Teeth in jaws are villiform; those on the palate are arranged in a crescentic band. Mouth is terminal; lower jaw is a little longer, snout is rather broad. Gape of mouth is more than half of the head length; mouth cleft does not extend below eye. Eyes are with narrow adipose lids. A pair of maxillary barbels is present; mandibular barbels are rarely seen. Two dorsal fins are present; the first one is with a weak and finely serrated spine and few rays and is as long as the head behind the middle of the eye; the second dorsal is adipose. Pectoral fin spine is stronger, serrated along both edges and is as long as head without snout. Pelvic fin arises under the posterior dorsal rays and nearly reaches the anal. S. silondia is widely distributed in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Myanmar (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991). It is a very common food fish of West Bengal where its flesh is prized. It is a delicacy in Punjab and Haryana (Devi and Boguskaya, 2009). Previously abundant in the rivers, streams, canals, reservoirs, lakes, swampland (beels, haors and baors) and ponds of Bangladesh (IUCN Bangladesh, 2000), India and Pakistan (Froese and Pauly, 2014), the species is currently declining in the main streams (Rahman et al., 2012 and Hossain et al., 2013). S. silondia is a demersal and amphidromous fish that generally occur in shoals. Commonly found in estuaries and rivers (mainly fluviatile) but also be alive in tanks and large reservoirs (IUCN Bangladesh, 2000). This fish species is quite frequent in the estuarine zone of river Hooghly (Gopalakrishnan, 1971). It inhabits in the estuaries of India and Myanmar; and ascends the large rivers almost to their sources (Karamchandani and Motwani, 1956). Carnivorous feeding habit of Silonia silondia has been reported by all previous workers (Hora, 1938, Gupta, 1981 and Karamchandani, 1957). The pre and post larvae of this fish species up to 10 mm size used to feed exclusively on zooplankton. The carnivorous feeding habit used to develop right from the early fry stage. 11-25 mm size fry takes carp fry, copepods and nauplius. Voracious piscivorous tendency develops in the fingerling stage when they predate on fry and fingerling of other fishes. Adults consume both fishes and bottom biota like prawns, crabs, molluscs, insects etc. (Karamchandani, 1957). The information on genetic parameters of S. silondia is very limited. Cytochrome b (1140 bp) and ATPase 6/8 (842 bp) genes were analyzed by Mandal et al. (2014) reported high level of genetic differentiation within populations of this fish. The sequence alignments of cytochrome b and ATPase 6/8 genes revealed 13 and 11 different haplotypes, respectively. The sequences of both the mitochondrial regions revealed high haplotype and low nucleotide diversities. The patterns of genetic diversity and haplotype networks clearly indicated two distinct mitochondrial lineages; however, haplotypes from both the lineages were not specifically assigned to any population. The results confirm the utility of molecular markers generating baseline information, useful for planning effective strategies for conservation, management and sustainability of Silond catfish fishery. Maximum length recorded 26 cm (Bhuiyan, 1964), 100 cm (Talwar and Jhingran, 1991), 80 cm (Rahman, 1989 and 2005) and 80-100 cm (IUCN Bangladesh, 2000). Maximum length and weight recorded by Rahman (1989 and 2005) 790 mm and 3.9 kg fish from the Gacher Duhar beel in Sylhet (Bangladesh). So far not much initiative has been taken to support the conservation of Silonia silondia except few works to study the feeding and reproductive biology of this fish species. Artificial breeding and rearing of the species have also been conducted by several research and education institutes in Asian countries (Mijkherjee et al., 2002).