Recorded from numerous river basins in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Peninsular Malaysia, including the Mekong, Chao Phraya, Mae Khlong, Chanthaburi, Tapi, Golok, Terengganu, Pahang, Endau, and Muar.

Type locality is ‘Kratt, southeastern Siam’, which corresponds to modern-day Trat Province, Thailand.

This species is widely referred to and traded as the congener ‘Puntius‘ narayani (Hora, 1937). The precise identity of the latter is in doubt, however, plus P. setnai possesses a serrated dorsal-fin spine whereas ‘P.‘

It was formerly included in the Puntius conchonius ‘group’ of closely-related species alongside P. ater, P. bandula, P. conchonius, P. cumingii, P. erythromycter,…

For many years this species was considered to occur in two colour forms with yellow or red dorsal, anal, and pelvic fins, respectively, but the red-finned variant has now been elevated to full species status as P. reval (Meegaskumbura et al. 2008). The latter is a smaller fish with a maximum SL of 33.6 mm recorded to date.

As well as the obvious differences in body size and fin colour P. cumingii can be told apart from P. reval by the following…

This species is rarely-exported for the aquarium hobby but is available on occasion. The name ‘P.‘ kuchingensis is frequently misapplied, however, with subadult forms of ‘P.‘ everetti and some populations of the geographically-variable ‘P.‘ lateristriga regularly traded as such, for example.

Though closely-affiliated with and superficially very similar to…

D. johorensis can be distinguished by the following combination of characters: 5-6 dark, lateral stripes on body in specimens larger than 40 mm; stripes immediately above and below the central stripe (stripes ‘+1’ and ‘-1’, respectively) located on scale rows +2 and -2, not touching dorsal and ventral midlines (except in some small specimens from Peninsular Malaysia); stripes broad, typically between 0.5-1 scale rows deep…

This species is native to Central West Africa where it is principally found in the great Ogooué and Congo River systems. It therefore has an extensive range and has been recorded at numerous localities right across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from the Ituri River in the far east of the country to the Luki River basin in the extreme west.

The Congo River appears to represent the southernmost limit of its range as a…

The genus Barbus is in something of a confused state classification-wise. While there exist almost 340 putative species the vast majority of them do not appear to be closely-related to the genus Barbus sensu stricto.

Berrebi et al. (1996) proposed that only the European, Southwest Asian and North African representatives should be included in Barbus (around 20 species) and that ‘all species of Barbus sen…

A stylish-looking but rare barb in the hobby and unfortunately little information is available regarding its captive care. Forum member Andy Rushworth has kept a lone individal and told us it was a perfect aquarium inhabitant in terms of behaviour and maintenance. He also mentioned that the fish he had looked exactly like the specimen in our images but that he has seen at least one batch of what appeared to be a different species imported under the same na…

This is one of two species sold with the common/trade name of "tinfoil barb", the other being the more widely-recognised B. schwanenfeldii. Despite this it appears that B. altus is just as widely available as B. schwanenfeldii and in many cases is seen on sale more regularly. Unfortunately both are usually offered at a small size (usually around 2 – 3"/5 – 7.5cm) with little to no information regarding the eventual size of the fish. Although B. altus is the …

Clypeobarbus was originally put forward as a subgenus of Barbus by Fowler in 1936 on the basis that member species possessed a midlateral row of enlarged, shield-like scales but he only included the type species ‘Barbus‘ kemoensis (now a junior synonym of Clypeobarbus pleuropholis) in the group. Subsequent work by Poll and Lambert (1961), Jubb (1965) and Skelton (1993) resulted in several additional species being placed into the grouping although it appears that little of this work was widely-recognised until the recent study was published.