''Rheocles sikorae'' 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 ...

Bedotiinae Bedotiinae are a subfamily of the rainbowfish family (biology), family Melanotaeniidae, commonly known as the Madagascar rainbowfish, Madagascan rainbowfish, or Malagasy rainbowfish due to their endemism to Madagascar. It includes two genus, gene ...

, the Madagascar rainbowfishes. 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 ...

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

where found in tropical

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

s and streams. It can reach the maximum recorded length of .

Distribution and status

''Rheocles sikorae'' is native to Madagascar, where found in the Mangoro stream, high valley of the east coast of the island, and in the Manambola River near Anosibe. At one point in time, this species was thought to be

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

, but since 1996 it has been collected from five forested stream localities near the town of

Marolambo Marolambo is a village and commune (kaominina) located in the Atsinanana region of eastern Madagascar. It is along the Nosivolo River near the junction with the Sandranamby River, and is also the capital of the Marolambo District. Overview T ...

Taxonomy and name

''Rheocles sikorae'' was described by Henri Émile Sauvage in 1891 as ''Eleotris sikorae'' with a type locality given as "Madagascar". Sauvage honoured the

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...

explorer Franz Sikora (1863-1902), who collected the type.

References

Sources

sikorae Fish described in 1891 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Atheriniformes-stub