NEWS107
5
Anotherphotoof theSiameseAlgaeEater.Onlyasadultsdo these fishesdevelopagreenback.
Crossocheilusoblongus
or anundescribed species?That is thequestion....
worldwide. In Germany, for example, the
SiameseAlgaeEater iscalled the "Siamen-
sische Rüsselbarbe" (= Long-Nosed Sia-
meseBarb)and theStonelappingMinnow
is the "Gestreifte Saugbarbe" (= Striped
Sucker Barb).These very different names
can lead toentertainingsoundtrackswhen
natural history films are dubbed into fo-
reign languagesas thedubbingeditorhas
no knowledge of fishes. Thus while the
German forcatfishes is "Welse",onGerman
TV they areusually referred toas "Katzen-
fische"basedon theEnglishnameof "cat-
fish"… These problems don't occur with
scientific names. The pronunciation of
Latin or Greek words in other countries
may takesomegettingused to,butsooner
or later comprehension ispossible.
Siamese Algae Eater and Stonelapping
Minnow
Oneof themost importantstudentsof the
fishes of Thailand was Hugh McCormick
Smith (1865-1941).To thepresent day his
book The fresh-water fishes of Siam, or
Thailand,published in1945,remainsoneof
themost important and valuable identifi-
cation guides to the freshwater fishes of
the region. In it theStonelappingMinnow
is termed
Garra taeniata
and the Siamese
Algae Eater (or a closely related species,
more of which anon) as
Epalzeorhynchus
siamensis.
Smith had himself previously
describedbothspeciesasnew taxaback in
1931.When the first algae-eaterswere im-
ported to Europe from Thailand around
1962 it was logical to identify them follo-
wingSmith.UnfortunatelySmithhadover-
looked the fact that his species
Garra tae-
niata
hadalreadybeendescribedas
Garra
cambodgiensis
byGilbertTirant in1884.Be-
cause the latter name is clearly older it
takesprecedenceover
G.taeniata
,aname
that shouldno longer beused.But unfor-
tunately theStonelappingMinnow isoften
still found under the incorrect name of
Garra taeniata
in the aquarium trade, as
that is the name used in themajority of
older aquariumbooks.
Confusion reigns: the Siamese Algae
Eater
Matters are somewhatmore complicated
in the case of this species, in that it has
been transferred to another genus and is
now called
Crossocheilus siamensis.
Such
changes of genus are a nightmare for
aquarists,but they repeatedlyhappenand
aresometimessimplyunavoidable,as they
