''Nannostomus britskii'', (from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
: ''nanos'' = small, and the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''stomus'' = relating to the mouth; ''britskii'' = in honor of ichthyologist,
Heraldo A. Britski),commonly known as the spotstripe pencilfish, is a freshwater
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
belonging to the family
Lebiasinidae
The pencil fishes are a family (Lebiasinidae) of freshwater fishes found in Costa Rica, Panama, and South America. They are usually small and are known as ornamental fishes in aquaria, including popular fishes such as the various pencil fish a ...
of
characin
Characiformes is an order of ray-finned fish, comprising the characins and their allies. Grouped in 18 recognized families, more than 2000 different species are described, including the well-known piranha and tetras.; Buckup P.A.: "Relationshi ...
s. They were first described in 1978 by Stanley H. Weitzman along with two other new species (''
Nannostomus limatus'' and ''
Nannostomus nitidus''), from a collection of specimens preserved in the São Paulo museum. They have been recorded from only two localities, both in Brazil.
No live specimens had been seen, collected, or exported for the aquarium trade until very recently.
References
Lebiasinidae
Taxa named by Stanley Howard Weitzman
Fish described in 1978
Fish of South America
Fish of the Amazon basin
{{characiformes-stub