NEWS107
4
Freshwater fishes
In the aquariumhobby, algae is a topic that is discussed almost as exhaustively as theweather.There is always
something to sayabout it,and in the final analysisweareall subject toweather.The sameapplies toalgae.Oneor
another speciesofalgaegrows ineveryaquarium.Thisannoysmanyaquaristsand they look for fishes thatwill eat
thesealgae.Manyaquaristshavehadgoodexperienceswith theSiameseAlgaeEater and theStonelappingMin-
now,bothof them fromThailand.
Twoof thebestalgaeeaters…
butwhoknows theirnames?
byRomanNeunkirchen
Like
Crossocheilusoblongus,Epalzeorhynchuskalopterus
, theFlyingFox,has fourbarbels.The two speciesarealmost impossible to tell apartwhen,as in thephoto,
thedarkdorsal-finmarkingsof
E.kalopterus
aren't visible.
All photos:FrankSchäfer
he two species are extremely similar
in their colorationandhencehave re-
peatedly been confused with one other.
They can,however, easilybe told apart by
a number of color characters. In the Sia-
mese Algae Eater the black midlateral
stripe extends well onto the caudal fin,
while in theStonelappingMinnow this lon-
gitudinal band always ends at thebaseof
the tail.Thedorsal finof theSiameseAlgae
Eater isalwayscompletely transparentand
T
colorless, while that of the Stonelapping
Minnow is striped,albeit in ratherdelicate,
pastel shades.And finally there is also an
anatomical character thatmakes it possi-
ble todistinguish them:specifically,theSia-
meseAlgaeEaterhas twopairsofwell-de-
velopedbarbels,oneon thesnoutandone
at thecornersof themouth,while theSto-
nelapping Minnow has only one pair of
barbels sited at the corners of themouth
andnoneon the snout.
Thescientificnames
Scientific names have universal validity
worldwide. Every species of animal bears
only a single valid scientific name. If - for
whatever reason -aspecies isdescribedse-
veral times thenonly theoldest namehas
validity,and theothersareso-called invalid
synonyms.Bycontrastanyonecan thinkup
their own popular name, as there are no
rulesofanykind. Inaddition,everyspecies
has numerous different popular names
