A number of aquarium favourites have new scientific names following a recent study. Here’s a handy guide to the changes.

The genus Puntius has undergone some major changes. © Hristo Hristov

Barb fans beware; an extensive review of South Asian Puntius spp. published in the latest volume of ‘Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters’ has resulted in a large portion of the genus being split up and many species placed in different genera. Continue reading »

Formerly Puntius padamya, the ‘Odessa barb’ is now renamed Pethia padamya.

The Asian cyprinid genus Puntius is partially revised by Rohan Pethiyagoda, Madhava Meegaskumbura, and Kalana Maduwage in the latest volume of the journal ‘Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters‘.

It contains many popular aquarium fishes and has been considered a ‘catch-all’ polyphyletic assemblage for a number of years with over 220 nominal members of which around 120 are currently valid. They’re distributed throughout tropical South and Southeast Asia but the new study is focussed on those species native to the sub-Himalayan region of  South Asia. Continue reading »