The red rainbowfish or salmon-red rainbowfish (''Glossolepis incisus'') is a species of

rainbowfish The rainbowfish or Melanotaeniidae is a family of small, colourful freshwater fish found in northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea (including islands in Cenderawasih Bay and Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia), Sulawesi and Madagascar. The lar ...

from

Lake Sentani Lake Sentani is a tropical, shallow, and at low-altitude open lake located at the northeast extremity of the Jayapura Regency in the Indonesian province of Papua, about from the provincial capital, Jayapura City. It is located just to the south ...

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

, Indonesia. Belonging to the family

Melanotaeniidae The rainbowfish or Melanotaeniidae is a family of small, colourful freshwater fish found in northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea (including islands in Cenderawasih Bay and Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia), Sulawesi and Madagascar. The lar ...

, in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

Melanotaeniinae Melanotaeniinae the Australian rainbowfishes is a subfamily of the rainbowfishes of the family Melanotaeniidae. They are a group of small, colourful, freshwater fish found in northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea, islands in Cenderawasih Bay ...

, the Australian rainbowfishes. It is threatened in its native range, but easily bred in captivity and common in the

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

trade.

Description

The males are bright red and with age grow a high back. The females are olive brown in colour. Their colours change depending on their mood, but subordinate males do not display bright colours. They grow up to in size, but typically attain a smaller size of around .

Breeding

They are an egg scattering species and they scatter their eggs among clumps of vegetation. The eggs take about 7 days to hatch.

Nutrition

''Glossolepis incisus'' is an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutr ...

and in captivity it will eat most common commercial aquarium foods readily. It may be slightly more carnivorous than most of the Australian rainbowfish.

Conservation status

The

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

classifies ''Glossolepis incisus'' as endangered. This is because of the rapidly increasing human population around this fish's only natural habitat and

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...

such as

tilapia Tilapia ( ) is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the coelotilapine, coptodonine, heterotilapine, oreochromine, pelmatolapiine, and tilapiine tribes (formerly all were "Tilapiini"), with the economically most ...

Distribution

This species is

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 ...

and its tributaries near

Jayapura Jayapura (formerly Dutch: ''Hollandia'') is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of Papua. It is situated on the northern coast of New Guinea island and covers an area of . The city borders the Pacific Ocean and Yos Sudarso ...

in Papua, IndonesiaRed Rainbowfish Fact Sheet
/ref> (a range it shares with the related ''

Chilatherina sentaniensis The Sentani rainbowfish (''Chilatherina sentaniensis'') is a critically endangered species of rainbowfish in the subfamily Melanotaeniinae. It is endemic to West Papua in Indonesia, where restricted to Lake Sentani (about 10 km west of J ...

'').

Taxonomy

''Glossolepis incisus'' 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 specimen ...

of the genus ''

Glossolepis ''Glossolepis'' is a genus of rainbowfishes from New Guinea. Species There are currently nine recognized species in this genus: * '' Glossolepis dorityi'' G. R. Allen, 2001 (Doritys rainbowfish) * ''Glossolepis incisus The red rainbowfish or ...

'' and was described by Max C.W. Weber in 1907.

References

Red rainbowfish The red rainbowfish or salmon-red rainbowfish (''Glossolepis incisus'') is a species of rainbowfish from Lake Sentani in Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Belonging to the family Melanotaeniidae, in the subfamily Melanotaeniinae, the Australian rainbowfishes ...

Freshwater fish of Western New Guinea Fishkeeping Taxa named by Max Carl Wilhelm Weber Fish described in 1907 {{Atheriniformes-stub