The giant red tail gourami (''Osphronemus laticlavius'') is a large species of

gourami Gouramis, or gouramies , are a group of freshwater anabantiform fishes that comprise the family Osphronemidae. The fish are native to Asia—from the Indian Subcontinent to Southeast Asia and northeasterly towards Korea. The name "gourami", of ...

belonging to the family Osphronemidae. It is native to the Southeast Asian island of

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

, where only known from the

Kinabatangan Kinabatangan ( ms, Pekan Kinabatangan) is the capital of the Kinabatangan District in the Sandakan Division of Sabah, Malaysia. Its population was estimated to be around 10,256 in 2010. Kinabatangan is mostly populated with the Orang Sungai ...

and Segama river basins in

Sabah Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory o ...

East Malaysia East Malaysia (), or the Borneo States, also known as Malaysian Borneo, is the part of Malaysia on and near the island of Borneo, the world's third-largest island. Near the coast of Sabah is a small archipelago called Labuan. East Malaysia li ...

, and Indonesia.Roberts, T.R. (1992). Systematic revision of the Southeast Asian anabantoid fish genus Osphronemus, with descriptions of two new species. Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwat. 2(4):351–360.Roberts, T.R. (1994). Osphronemus exodon, a new species of giant gourami with extraordinary dentition from the Mekong. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society 42(1): 67–77. First described in 1992 based on an aquarium specimen. The giant red tail gourami is not common; in a study of the Segama River that covered eight years only a few were caught, and it may already have disappeared from the lower Kinabatangan River. It is replaced in

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...

Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...

, and

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

and

West Kalimantan West Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Barat) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five Indonesian provinces comprising Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city is Pontianak. The province has an area of 147,307&nbs ...

by the closely related '' O. septemfasciatus'' (this species may also occur in Sabah, but that is unconfirmed).Rachmatika, I., Nasi, R., Sheil, D., and Wan, M. (2005). A first look at the fish species of the middle Malinau: Taxonomy, ecology, vulnerability and importance. Center for International Forestry Research.Sulaiman, Z., Tan, H.H., and Lim, K.K.P. (2018). Annotated checklist of freshwater fishes from Brunei Darussalam, Borneo. Zootaxa 4379(1): 24-46. The common

giant gourami The giant gourami (''Osphronemus goramy'') is a species of large gourami native to freshwater habitats in Southeast Asia. It has also been introduced elsewhere. The species is commercially important as a food fish and is also farmed. It can be fou ...

(''O. goramy'') occurs at least in Sarawak and West Kalimantan, but this species is possibly not native to Borneo, instead being introduced.

Description

Adults of ''Osphronemus laticlavius'' can grow up to . These fishes have 10 dorsal spines, 13–14 dorsal soft rays, 11–12 anal spines and 16 – 18 anal soft rays.Fishbase
/ref> Body is massive, laterally compressed, with an almost oval shape. The head is snub-nosed, with prominent jaw. The pectoral fins are large and rounded, while the dorsal and anal fins are slightly elongated. Even the tail is rounded and the ventral fins are threadlike. At the root of the pectoral fins appears a black ocellus. Another larger black ocellus appears on the caudal peduncle. Adults have bright red fin edges with filamentous extensions. Body colour varies from gray-blue to gray-green to brown, darker on the back. Females have duller colors. Like other species of the genus ''

Osphronemus ''Osphronemus'' is a genus of large gouramis, the only genus within the subfamily Osphroneminae. These fish are known as the giant gouramis and are native to rivers, lakes, pools, swamps and floodplains in Southeast Asia, with ''O. exodon'' fro ...

'', juveniles and adults are quite different, as in juveniles the colors are less dramatic and the bright red fins develops only with age.Animal World
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:gourami, tail, red, giant giant red tail gourami Taxa named by Tyson R. Roberts giant red tail gourami