''Pethia stoliczkana'' is a
freshwater tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...
cyprinid
Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest ver ...
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 ...
native to the upper
Mekong
The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annual ...
,
Salwen,
Irrawaddy,
Meklong and upper
Charo Phraya basins in the countries of
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
,
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
,
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
,
Laos,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
,
China and
Sri Lanka.
Etymology
The fish is named for
Ferdinand Stoliczka
Ferdinand Stoliczka (Czech written Stolička, 7 June 1838 – 19 June 1874) was a Moravian palaeontologist who worked in India on paleontology, geology and various aspects of zoology, including ornithology, malacology, and herpetology. He died of ...
.
Description
''P. stoliczkana'' is silver-green with a vertically elongated black blotch behind the gill opening, and a vertically elongated black blotch on the caudal peduncle. The dorsal fin of a sexually active male is red with a black margin and two rows of black spots. It has no barbels and the last simple dorsal ray is serrated posteriorly. It grows to a maximum length of
SL.
[
''P. stoliczkana'' is of commercial importance in the fish keeping industry and is used to create hybrid variants of ]tiger barb
The tiger barb or Sumatra barb (''Puntigrus tetrazona''),Kottelat, M. (2013)The Fishes of the Inland Waters of Southeast Asia: A Catalogue and Core Bibliography of the Fishes Known to Occur in Freshwaters, Mangroves and Estuaries. ''The Raffle ...
s and other barb
Barb or the BARBs or ''variation'' may refer to:
People
* Barb (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname
* Barb, a term used by fans of Nicki Minaj to refer to themselves
* The Barbs, a band
Places
* Barb, ...
s.
This fish is one of many barbs that has recently undergone revision in their taxonomic classification and has been moved from the genus, Puntius to the genus Pethia
''Pethia'' is a genus of small freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae native to South Asia, East Asia (only Pethia stoliczkana recorded) and Mainland Southeast Asia. Some species are commonly seen in the aquarium trade. The name ''Pethia'' is d ...
. This species is frequently confused with '' P. ticto'', the Ticto barb or Two-spot barb, a related and similar species from the same geographic region, the males of which lack the red-flushed dorsal fin of male ''P. stoliczkana''. In the early aquarium literature ''P. stoliczkana'' was commonly misidentified as ''P. ticto'' and given the common name, Tic-Tac-Toe
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...
barb. As a result, this common name is often still applied to both species.["Exotic Aquarium Fishes" by Dr. William T. Innes, Innes Publishing Co, Philadelphia, 1935]
See also
* List of freshwater aquarium fish species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1435371
Pethia
Barbs (fish)
Fish of Southeast Asia
Fish of Thailand
Fish of Myanmar
Fish of India
Fish described in 1871