Abstract:
Mukene (Rastrineobola argentea) is a freshwater tiny cyprinid endemic to
Lake Victoria, Lake Kyoga and the Victoria Nile River. It is the third most
important commercial fishery of Uganda after Lates niloticus and
Oreochromis niloticus. The study investigated the fatty acid content of the
fishmeal of whole fish of R. argentea and for differences in the fatty acid
profile of the samples from the different water bodies. Fatty acid
composition of fishmeal obtained from samples collected from the two
lakes and the Victoria Nile River was determined using chemometric
method for five fish samples from each location and subjected to
multivariate analysis. In each fish the fatty acids detected ranged from 14
to 24 carbons. Palmitic (16:00), stearic (18:00), oleic (18:1n9),
arachidonic (20:4n6) and docosahexaenoic (22:6n3) were the principal
fatty acids in all sampled fish