Preserved specimens of R. dusonensis (top) and R. tornieri (bottom), both collected from the Sungai (river) Gelam, Sumatra © Ng & Kottelat

The identities of both species have been unclear for a number of decades but are resolved in a new paper by ichthyologists Heok Hee Ng and Maurice Kottelat published in the journal ‘Zootaxa’ last week. Continue reading »

K. vitreolus is well-known to aquarists but has been misidentified for at least 80 years. © Unimati.dk

Over the last few decades the aquarium glass catfish has generally been referred to as Kryptopterus bicirrhis or, more recently, K. minor in both aquarium and scientific literature, but a new paper by Drs. Heok Hee Ng and Maurice Kottelat reveals that this popular species has in fact been misidentified for over eighty years. Continue reading »

The juvenile colour pattern has made this species a sought-after aquarium fish. © Stan Sung

The enigmatic ‘panda loach’, formerly referred to as ‘Protomyzon‘ pachychilus is shown to represent a distinct genus in the latest volume of the journal ‘Zootaxa’. Continue reading »

It is often said that a tiger never loses its stripes, but what about its name? Matt Ford investigates…

Which tiger is this? The aquarium tiger barb appears of questionable identity. © Mike McGeoghegan

Cases in which a fish long thought to be one species turns out to represent something else are not especially unusual within the aquarium hobby. Notable examples include that of the ‘arulius barb’, for many years referred to as Puntius arulius (Jerdon 1849) but now confirmed as Dawkinsia tambraparniei (Silas 1954), and the ‘kuhli loach’, normally identified as Pangio kuhlii (Valenciennes 1846), a species which may never have been traded.
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