The Celebes rainbowfish (''Marosatherina ladigesi'') is a species of

sailfin silverside The Telmatherininae, the sail-fin silversides are a subfamily of atheriniform fish from the rainbowfish family, the Melanotaeniidae, inhabiting fresh and brackish water. All but the species ''Kalyptatherina helodes'' are restricted to the Indone ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

(formerly known as Celebes) in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It is the only known member of its

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Description

Males grow to 6–8 cm, and females to 5–7 cm in length. Their bodies are slender and almost fully transparent with a blue stripe along the sideline. The sexes can be easily

distinguished The ruling made by the judge or panel of judges must be based on the evidence at hand and the standard binding precedents covering the subject-matter (they must be ''followed''). Definition In law, to distinguish a case means a court decides th ...

, since males have elongated black dorsal and ventral fins, and are usually a little darker than females.

Distribution and habitat

''Marosatherina ladigesi'' is found only near the town of

Maros Maros is a town in the South Sulawesi province of Indonesia close to the provincial capital of Makassar. It is the capital of the Maros Regency. Maros is the location of the Indonesian Cereals Research Institute, a branch of the Indonesian A ...

from which the

name ''Marosatherina'' is derived. Due to ornamental fish business and pollution, their numbers have been dramatically reduced. These fish dwell in streams and

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

, ranging from fresh to mildly

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

water. They are typically found in areas with high levels of dissolved oxygen. Most of their day is spent hiding among the leaves of plants, where they eat small worms,

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s, or vegetable debris.

In the aquarium

The Celebes rainbowfish is a peaceful aquarium fish. It grows to 7.5 cm (3 inches). It eats prepared foods and small livefoods.Encyclopedia of Aquarium and Pond Fish (2005) (

David Alderton David Alderton is an English writer specialising in pets and natural history topics. Growing up in a home surrounded by pets, he originally trained to become a veterinary surgeon. An allergic dermatitis acquired in his final year of study forced ...

) (page 177) It prefers a temperature of 20–28 C (68–82 F), a pH of 7.0 to 7.5 and a hardness of 150 to 200 mg/L. These fish are sensitive to water quality. If conditions are favorable spawning may occur nonstop for months, but they often eat their eggs. Eggs hatch after up to eleven days.

Etymology

The name of the genus is a compound of ''Maros'' from the village near where the

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

was collected and''Atherina'', a genus of silverside while the

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...

Werner Ladiges Werner may refer to: People * Werner (name), origin of the name and people with this name as surname and given name Fictional characters * Werner (comics), a German comic book character * Werner Von Croy, a fictional character in the ''Tomb Rai ...

(1910-1984), who collected the type.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q571150 Telmatherininae Freshwater fish of Indonesia Taxa named by Ernst Ahl Fish described in 1936 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot