© Martins et al.

A new loricariid catfish from the upper rio Paraná basin, Brazil has been described. Continue reading »

Nonn Panitvong/Siamensis.org

The Betta splendens-group fish previously known in the hobby as B. sp. ‘Maha Chai’ is officially described in the journal ‘Zootaxa’ this week. Continue reading »

Members of the family  Phallostethidae are small freshwater fishes native to Southeast Asia and included in the order Atheriniformes so related to rainbowfishes and ricefishes, among others.

They’re not popular aquarium fishes, but have an interesting reproductive strategy whereby males are equipped with a unique apparatus known as the priapium which is located on the underside of the head and used for clasping a female while simultaneously entering the body cavity and fertilising eggs internally. The female subsequently lays fully-fertilised eggs rather than giving birth to live young.

Freshly collected male (above) and female specimens of P. cuulong. © L. X. Tran

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Yet another new species is described in the rheophilic catfish genus Trichomycterus this week. T. argos is known from the Rio Doce watershed in the neotropical Atlantic rainforest of the Serra do Brigadeiro, Minas Gerais state, eastern Brazil.

The area is a national park and home to numerous endemic species although only around 5% of the original forest cover now remains. Continue reading »

The perciform genus Pristolepis has a highly-fragmented distribution in southern India, Indochina and the Sunda Islands. A new species from the Western Ghats mountains in southern India, which has been available in the aquarium trade as P. sp. ‘red eye’,  is described this week and published in the mega journal Zootaxa, bringing the number of officially-recognised species to four. Continue reading »

A recently-discovered member of the genus Dario with an interesting history is described from southern India in the journal Zootaxa this week.

This is the first record of the genus in southern India. © Hayath

New species Dario urops is named in reference to the conspicuous ocellus on the caudal peduncle, the presence of which distinguishes it from the other three members of the genus, and it can be further told apart by presence of a horizontal suborbital stripe (vs. absence in congeners), by lacking extended lappets on the dorsal-fin spines (vs. possessing), and unusual vertebral counts (14+14–15= 28–29 vs 11–13+12–14=24–27). Continue reading »

A new species of the genus Trichomycterus is described from the rio Uruguai drainage, Rio Grande do Sol State, Brazil, with a single paratype from the rio Paranapanema basin, São Paulo State. Both rivers are tributaries within the rio Paraná watershed.

Trichomycterus perkos is named from the Greek ‘perkos’ (περκὸς), meaning ‘spotted or streaked with black marks’ in allusion to its colour pattern comprising dark stripes in smaller individuals and a combination of dark stripes and spots in larger specimens. Continue reading »

Loach previously misidentified in the aquarium hobby given name.

Nonn Panitvong/Siamensis.org

The fish previously known as Acanthocobitis rubidipinnis in the aquarium hobby is officially described as A. pictilis in the journal Zootaxa this week. It’s native to the Mae Klong watershed in western Thailand and the Ataran River, an affluent of the upper Salween basin flowing into Myanmar from Kanchanaburi province, Thailand.

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