''Pseudosphromenus dayi'' is a species of freshwater ray finned fish from 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 ...

Macropodusinae The Macropodusinae are a subfamily of freshwater anabantiform fishes in the gourami family Osphronemidae, which includes the paradisefish, fighting fish and licorice gouramis. Like all members of the family, these are air breathing fishes ...

, part of the gourami

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Osphronemidae. It occurs in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

on both the coastal regions and the Western Ghats. It is a species of still or slow flowing waters, especially lakes, ditches and swamps in both fresh and brackish waters. ''Pseudosphromenus dayi'' is a bubble nester, the male creates a nest made of bubbles under an overhang or a leaf. The females lays eggs which drop to the substrate and are picked up by both fishes in the pair and placed in the bubble nest. The name ''Polyacanthus cupanus dayi'' was first published in 1908 by Köhler in 1908 but '' Catalog of Fishes'' refers to this as a ''

nomen nudum In taxonomy, a ''nomen nudum'' ('naked name'; plural ''nomina nuda'') is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published with an adequate descr ...

'' and attributes the valid use of the name, with a formal description, to P. Engmann in 1909. The type locality is given as

Malacca Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...

which is probably an error and should be Kerala. 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 ...

honors the British

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...

and author of the ''Fishes of India'',

Francis Day Francis Talbot Day (2 March 1829 – 10 July 1889) was an army surgeon and naturalist in the Madras Presidency who later became the Inspector-General of Fisheries in India and Burma. A pioneer ichthyologist, he described more than three hund ...

(1830–1889).

References

dayi Fish described in 1908 {{Anabantiformes-stub