02232naa a2200361 a 450000100080000000500110000800800410001902200140006002400470007410000230012124501770014426000090032152011850033065000100151565000090152565000250153465000220155965000090158165000100159065000110160065000120161165000130162365300240163670000180166070000260167870000220170470000200172670000210174670000230176770000220179070000180181277300400183021528642023-03-30       2023    bl uuuu     u00u1 u    #d  a2410-38887 ahttps://doi.org/10.3390/fishes80401802DOI1 aOLIVEIRA, N. F. A.  aFish size correlates to size and morphology of intermuscular bones in tambaqui Colossoma macropomum as shown by dissection and X-ray imaging methods.h[electronic resource]  c2023  aOne of the main issues in the processing sector of the tambaqui Colossoma macropomum is the removal and/or fragmentation of intermuscular bones (IBs), which negatively impacts its production chain. In this sense, we quantitatively examined the IB variation in farmed tambaqui (n = 127) by comparing the direct anatomical dissection with the high-resolution X-ray imaging method. The number of IBs from the anatomical dissection on the left side of the fish (27.3 ± 5.70 bones) was comparable to that of X-ray analysis (26.9 ± 6.03 bones) (p &gt 0.05). In addition, 76% of deviation in IB number between the two studied methods was one to three, indicating both methods are equally efficient for identifying and quantifying IBs. We found a strong positive correlation (R = 0.8, p &lt 0.001) between the X-ray and the dissection methods. Our predictive models indicated that more than 50% of variation in IB length can be explained by growth parameters. Our results demonstrated that the X-ray method can provide accurate phenotypic data (in vivo) for IB counting and length measurements by extrapolating from the standard length, body weight and trunk over axis area of tambaqui.  aBones  aFish  aColossoma Macropomum  aMorfologia Animal  aOsso  aPeixe  aRaio X  aTamanho  aTambaqui  aIntermuscular bones1 aTORATI, L. S.1 aBORIN-CARVALHO, L. A.1 aLIMA, L. K. F. de1 aPUVANENDRAN, V.1 aDEMICIANO, T. H.1 aSILVA, J. J. T. da1 aBARROSO, A. da S.1 aVARELA, E. S.  tFishesgv. 8, n. 4, 180, Mar. 2023.