Van Heurn's rainbowfish (''Melanotaenia vanheurni'') 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 ...

to West Papua 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 ...

. 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 Dutch

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

Willem Cornelis van Heurn (1887-1972).

References

Melanotaenia Freshwater fish of Western New Guinea Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Fish described in 1922 {{Atheriniformes-stub