P. apogon has formerly been placed within the genera Kryptopterus, Micronema (Rainboth, 1996) and more recently Phalacronotus (Ferraris, 2007) and is an important food fish across much of its native range.

It’s very similar to P. micronema but can be told apart by its longer head (HL fits 4.6± 5.3 times in…

Has been recorded in fast-flowing environments but most commonly associated with peat swamp forests and associated blackwater streams.

Many such habitats have suffered degradation of some kind but in unaltered cases the dense canopy of branches above means very little light penetrates the surface of such environments, and riparian vegetation also tends to grow thickly.

Known from the Malay Peninsula and Singapore plus Greater Sunda Islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java in Indonesia with populati0ns from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam formerly considered as conspecific now referred to K. geminus (Ng, 2003).

Type locality is given as ‘Bandjarmassing’ which corresponds to a town now more commonly referred to as ‘Banjarmasin’ in South Kalimantan (Kalimantan Selatan) province, Indonesia (Borneo).

This species is distinguished from its Australian congeners S. jardinii and S. leichardti by possessing a lower number of lateral line scales (21-26 vs 32-36).

It occurs naturally in a number of colour forms of which three were elevated to distinct species status in 2003, but the current majority view is that all represent S. formosus pending a detailed review. Kottelat (2013) mentions that the red form may…

Occurs in northern and eastern Australia and southern New Guinea.

In the former its range extends from the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of Western Australia state around the northern and eastern coastlines of the continent as far as the Towamba river system in New South Wales state.

Appears to be endemic to southwestern Borneo though occurence records are scant. Type locality is ‘Bandjarmasin’, a port town in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan Selatan (South Kalimantan), and following Kottelat (1991) it’s range extends westwards as far as the Jelai Bila river basin, near the town of Sukamara, where it’s said to occur sympatrically with the congener B. merah.

Boraras was erected in 1993 in order to separa…

This species is relatively common in the aquarium hobby but contrary to popular belief is not venomous in any way. Its dorsal and opercular spines can pierce the skin, however, meaning extreme caution is necessary when netting it or performing aquarium maintenance.

The genus Allenbatrachus was erected in 1997 to accom…

This is the most commonly-encountered representative of the genus in the aquatic trade though is by no means common. As in other members of the genus body colouration is highly variable, even among individuals collected from a single locality, although a few useful regularities have been observed which can be used to distinguish certain species. This is thought related to the fact that Acrochordonichthys spp. periodically shed their skins and appear paler post-moulting.

A. rugosus lends its …

The vernacular name ‘lancer’ is derived from the extended dorsal spine possessed by several members of the genus, which currently contains 7 species. Among them B. macracanthus is most similar to B. majusculus and B. vaillantii but can be told apart from the former by possession of shorter pectoral spines (13.3 – 16.2% SL vs. 15.8 – 20.7%), shorter adipose fin (46.0 – 58.0% SL vs. 38.8 – 45.8%), less deep caudal peduncle (7.1 – 7.5% SL vs. 5.6-7.0%) and larger adult size. From B. vaillantii it di…