The mountain rainbowfish (''Melanotaenia monticola'') 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 ...

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 ...

. It 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 ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, where it occurs in the Southern Highlands between Mendi and Lake Kutubu, in the

Purari River Purari may refer to: * Purari River, Papua New Guinea *Purari language Purari (Namau) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea. Names Purari is also known as ''Koriki, Evorra, I'ai, Maipua,'' and ''Namau.'' "Namau" is a colonial term which mea ...

system.

Sources

Melanotaenia Freshwater fish of Papua New Guinea Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Fish described in 1980 {{Atheriniformes-stub