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ScientificNews
Dawkinsia tambraparniei
The“real”
Dawkinsiaarulius.
This fishhaspreviouslybeenregardedasanewspeciesawaitingdescription
awkinsia
is fairlywell defined,asalso
demonstrated by the aquarium-
hobbygroupingof the includedspeciesas
“Indianbarbs”. I don’t propose to enume-
rate the anatomical details here, but
anyone with a particular interest should
refer to the original work by Pethiyagoda
etal. (2012).All Indianbarbsexhibit sexual
dimorphism,expressedas free,prolonged
dorsal-fin rays insexually ripemales.All In-
dianbarbsgrow to8-12cm long (standard
length, ie not including the tail) and are
thusclassifiedasmedium-sizedbarbs from
anaquariumviewpoint.
According tocurrentknowledge thegenus
containsninespecies:
D.arulius,D.assimilis,
D.exclamatio,D.filamentosa,D.rohani,D.ru-
brotincta,D.singhala,D.srilankensis,
and
D.
tambraparniei.D.rohani
wasn’tmentioned
inmyoverviewof thegroup (Schäfer,2009)
as the specieswasn’t scientifically descri-
beduntil 2010and (as faras isknown) first
imported at around the same time.Aqua-
riumGlaser iscurrentlyoffering thisattrac-
tive fish on a regular basis. A further
change to the Indianbarbs took place in
2011,whenKnight et al. revalidated
Daw-
kinsia rubrotincta
(as
Puntius rubrotinctus
).
Prior to then thespecieswas regardedasa
synonymof
D.arulius
.Ihavehitherto refer-
red to
D. rubrotincta
(I treat the species
nameasanadjective (itmeans“witha red
tinge”),whilearulius isanounandderived
from thenativenamearuli)as
D.arulius
,the
"real"
D.arulius
sensuKnightetal. (2011) is
the fishmentioned inAF205 in the lastpa-
ragraphonpage 32 and the first onpage
D
The Indianbarbswere transferred to thenewly createdgenus
Dawkinsia
in a recent generic revisionof the small Asianbarbs (Pethiyagoda et al.,
2012).The typespecies is
Leuciscus filamentosus
Valenciennes inCuvierand
Valenciennes,1844.Dawkinsiawasnamed inhonorof theevolutionarybio-
logist RichardDawkins ("Theegoisticgene"),and thegenderof thegenus
is feminine. Thismeans thatadjectival speciesnamesmusthaveanappro-
priatewordending,so the typespecies isnowcalled
Dawkinsia filamentosa.
Newson
Indianbarbs
byFrankSchäfer
Dawkinsiasrilankensis
Dawkinsiasinghala
Dawkinsia rubrotincta
Dawkinsiaexclamatio
Dawkinsiaassimilis
