Harlequin rasbora

Keilfleckbärbling ( Rasbora heteromorpha )

The Keilfleckbärbling ( Rasbora heteromorpha ) is a small carp fish from Southeast Asia.

Features

Together with two other species of the genus Rasbora is Keilfleckbärblinge differ from most other Rasborinen by her high-backed body: the widest part is between the first rays of the dorsal and ventral fins. Keilfleckbärblinge have relatively large scales. Your base color is between a bright shade of rosé and shiny copper. The staining is more intense on the head, back and on the tail fins stem and continues in the unpaired fins. At the ventral side towards the fish seem to silvery white. The striking, eponymous " wedge" begins below the Dorsal approach and ends in females in the tail fin root. In male fish he runs like a dark tip through the center of the tail fin. In addition, the anal fin of the male wearing a dark line drawing barely visible or even not occur in females. The mouth is constantly above. As with almost all other rasborinen carp fish also, the side line is not fully developed. You can reach a total length of two to two and a half centimeters.

Distribution and ecology

The ichthyologist and later curator at the Zoological Museum Hamburg, Georg Duncker, discovered the species in a pond of the botanical gardens of Singapore and described it in 1904 in a summary paper on the data collected by him on the Malay Peninsula freshwater fish. Also, all Keilfleckbärblinge collected in the next 20 years came directly from or via Singapore to Europe. In fact, the range of such hidden living species extends over the entire Malay Peninsula and the South East of Thailand. The active also in Hamburg zoological museum Werner Chocoholics who examined the natural habitats first, called shady and weedy streams as home waters of Keilfleckbärblinge. Always the total hardness of the water was below 3 ° GCH, was so very soft. Keilfleckbärblinge feed on insect larvae, copepods and other zooplankton and approach of food.

Reproduction

Keilfleckbärblinge are not schooling fish, but live, like many other small cyprinids also in simply structured social organizations. For reproduction, but to males from and advertise with fins spread wide, intense coloration and jerky to dance-like movements to spawning females ready. In this way, form short-term couples. The females glue the Laich on the undersides of leaves of aquatic plants, only after the fertilization is done by the male. Any further parental care is not, not even in the form of guarding the spawning place.

System

For the Keilfleckbärblinge identified in the genus Rasbora collection created Maurice Kottelat and cell biologist Kai -Erik Witte 1999, the genus Trigonostigma. The most important differentiating factor was about the distinctly different from all other Southeast Asian barb reproductive behavior. It's all four representatives of Keilfleckbärblinge own. So even Rasbora hengeli ( Meinken, 1956), Rasbora somphongsi ( Meinken, 1958) and Rasbora espei ( Meinken, 1976). The two last-mentioned species are considered to be valid, while the description of R. hengeli is doubtful due to the inadequate diagnosis.

Studies of mitochondrial DNA of many Southeast Asian carp fish by Tang et al. (2010) gave arguments for a return to the genus Rasbora sensu lato. Another, however, purely morphological examination by SO Kullander et. al. (2010) promotes the retention of the new genus Trigonostigma. An important result of the work of Tang, K. L. et al. (2010), the finding of different monophyletic trends that make it a purely morphologically defined species Trigonostigma with Rasbora, now part of the back and the Keilfleckbärbling synonymisierten.

Relevance to humans

Keilfleckbärblinge are popular and pet shops constantly offered aquarium fish. There are a melanistic, a xanthoristische and a schleierflossige breed form. The first life to importation to Europe was in 1906 by the animal dealers and breeders Julius Reichelt, Berlin. It was not until over 20 years later a gentleman Gundelach from Thuringia succeeded Welterstzucht because he had soft water, which is crucial for egg development. Today, the world's traded Keilfleckbärblinge from large breeding farms in Thailand, Malaysia, Poland and the Czech Republic come.

Swell

• Alfred, ER ( 1963): Some comments on the type specimens of Malayan fishes Described by George Duncker. Bull Nat. Mus. Singapore, 32: 165-166.
• Duncker, G. ( 1904): The fishes of the Malay Peninsula. Messages from the Natural History ( Zoology ) Museum in Hamburg v. 21: 133-207, Pls. 1-2.
• Kottelat, M., Whitten, A. J., Kartikasari, N.S. and S. Wirjoatmodjo (1993 ): Freshwater fishes of Western Indonesia and Sulawesi. Periplus Editions, Hong Kong.
• Kottelat, M. and K.-E. Witte ( 1999): Two new species of Microrasbora from Thailand and Myanmar, with two new generic names for small southeast Asian cyprinid fishes ( Teleostei: Cyprinidae ). Journal of South Asian Natural History, 4 ( 1): 49-56.
• Chocoholics, Werner ( 1951): The fish in the landscape, 2nd edition, published by Gustav Wenzel & Sohn, Braunschweig.
• Chocoholics, W.; from Wahlert, G. and E. Mohr ( 1958): The types and Typoide the fish collection of the Hamburg State Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum. :: Messages from the Hamburg Zoological Institute, 56: 155-167.
• Liao, T. Y., Kullander, S.O. and F. Fang ( 2009): Phylogenetic analysis of the genus Rasbora ( Teleostei: Cyprinidae ). Zoologica Scripta: 1-22.
• Meinken, H. ( 1956): Communication from the fish destination of the VDA. XXIII. Rasboa hengeli spec. nov., a very pretty new for the lover pool. D. Aqu. and Terr Z. ( DATZ ) 9 ( 11): 281-283.
• Meinken, H. ( 1958): Communication from the fish destination of the VDA. XXIX. Rasbora somphongsi a new Zwergrasbora. D. Aqu. and Terr Z. ( DATZ ) 11 (3): 67-69.
• Meinken, H. ( 1967): From Thailand was a pretty sub-species of harlequin barb. The aquarium 1 (2): 14-16.
• Stallknecht, H. ( 1994): barbs and danios. Tetra -Verlag, Melle. ISBN 3-89745-116-6.
• Steinle, C.-P. (1998): barbs and danios. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart. ISBN 3-8001-7433-2.
• Tang, K. L. et. al. (2010): Systematics of the subfamily Danioninae ( Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae ). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 57: 189-214.