''Trichogaster fasciata'', the banded gourami or striped gourami or Colisa or Kholshe , is a tropical

labyrinth In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (, ) was an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by t ...

perch found in some Asian countries like

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

, Eastern India,

Northeastern India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

Upper Myanmar Upper Myanmar ( my, အထက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Upper Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar, traditionally encompassing Mandalay and its periphery (modern Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway Regions), or more broadly speak ...

, China and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

Characteristics

''Trichogaster fasciata'' is an air-breathing fish, so that the aerial respiration is performed with the help of a pair of supra-branchial chambers, each containing a complicated labyrinthine organ. Body is elongated and compressed. Mouth is small and slightly protrusible. Preorbital serrate is found in young fish. Body color is greenish with oblique orange or bluish bars descending downwards and backwards from the back to the anal fin. It is

benthopelagic The demersal zone is the part of the sea or ocean (or deep lake) consisting of the part of the water column near to (and significantly affected by) the seabed and the benthos. The demersal zone is just above the benthic zone and forms a layer of ...

and prefers weedy environments such as

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 environmen ...

, ponds, large rivers, ditches, lakes and rice fields. The species has drawn attention for its scrumptious taste, contribution to nutrition and its ornamental value as an aquarium fish. It is somewhat shy but quite hardy, and easily adapts to life in

community aquarium Community aquaria are tanks that are designed to contain more than one species of fish. Most commonly they include a variety of species that do not normally occur together in nature, for example angelfish from Brazil, swordtails from Mexico, and ...

. It is also easy to breed in captivity. Banded gourami is being exported to Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and USA due to their distinctive color. In the past, the species was readily available in freshwater pools, ponds, ditches, marshes, rivers, lakes with vegetation, but the natural resources of this fish are declining fast due to various anthropogenic stressors.

Feeding habit

The mouth of this species is bordered by thick lips, the upper being protrudable and more pronounced in the male. Small and feeble teeth are present in the mouth and buccal cavity. The intestine is long and coiled. The fish is omnivorous in nature, so they can feed on live, frozen and flake feeds.

Sexual dimorphism

Males are much more colourful than females, and develop pointed dorsal and anal fins when they are mature.

Reproduction

The total life span of this species is approximately 4 years. Banded gourami has three distinctive life stages: pre-spawning (January–March), spawning (April–August) and post-spawning (September–December). They become sexually mature at 1 year of age with the total length of male and female reached approximately at 10 cm and 6–8 cm, respectively. Generally males are slightly larger in size than their females. Male and female broods are distinguished by examining the gonads and based on the external morphological features: the upper lip of the male is more pronounced and the dorsal ventral fins are more pointed at the posterior end than those of the female. Like other Anabantoids, this species is a bubble nest builder and the fertilization is external.

Relationship with humans

Before being introduced into the aquarium trade, the dwarf, along with the snakeskin gourami was and still is a popular food fish in its native range. In

it is known as “Kholisha” and “”Khosti” in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and “Kungee” in

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...

as well as different linguistic variants within its range.

Taxonomy

Trichogaster fasciata was formally described in 1801 by

Marcus Elieser Bloch Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German physician and naturalist who is best known for his contribution to ichthyology through his multi-volume catalog of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. Brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish ...

and

Johann Gottlob Schneider Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider (18 January 1750 – 12 January 1822) was a German classicist and naturalist. Biography Schneider was born at Collm in Saxony. In 1774, on the recommendation of Christian Gottlob Heine, he became secretary to ...

with the type locality given as

Tranquebar Tharangambadi (), formerly Tranquebar ( da, Trankebar, ), is a town in the Mayiladuthurai district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu on the Coromandel Coast. It lies north of Karaikal, near the mouth of a distributary named Uppanar of the Kave ...

, a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

trading post in India. It is the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

of the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

Trichogaster ''Trichogaster'' is a genus of gouramis native to South Asia from Pakistan to Myanmar. It is the only genus in the monotypic subfamily Trichogastrinae as set out in the 5th Edition of ''Fishes of the World'', although that book states that there ...

''.

References

fasciata Fish of South Asia Fish described in 1801 Taxa named by Marcus Elieser Bloch Taxa named by Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider {{Rayfinned-fish-stub