The red-tailed silverside, or zona (''Bedotia geayi'') is a species of

Madagascar rainbowfish Bedotiidae are a family of fish in the order Atheriniformes. They are closely related to the Australian rainbowfish family Melanotaeniidae, and were formerly placed in it as a subfamily, but are now considered a distinct family. They are commonl ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to the Mananjary River drainage in

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

and

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

. It has often been confused with the related '' B. madagascariensis'', which is common in the aquarium trade.SeriouslyFish:
Bedotia madagascarensis.
' Retrieved 3 July 2014.Loiselle, P.V.; and Rodriguez, D. (2007). ''A new species of Bedotia (Teleostei: Atherinomorpha: Bedotiidae) from the Rianila drainage of Eastern Madagascar, with redescriptions of Bedotia madagascariensis and Bedotia geayi.'' Zootaxa 1520: 1-18. In addition to

meristics Meristics is an area of zoology and botany which relates to counting quantitative features of animals and plants, such as the number of fins or scales in fish. A meristic (countable trait) can be used to describe a particular species, or used to i ...

, the two can be separated by the exact colour pattern on their tail fin (males of both typically have red in the tail) and the distinct red spot on the lower jaw of breeding male ''B. geayi'' (lacking in ''B. madagascariensis''). ''B. geayi'' was described in 1907 by Jacques Pellegrin from a

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...

collected by the

pharmacist A pharmacist, also known as a chemist in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, is a healthcare professional who is knowledgeable about preparation, mechanism of action, clinical usage and legislation of medications in ...

and natural history collector

Martin François Geay Martin may refer to: Places Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Europe * Martin, Croatia, a village * Martin, Slovakia, a city * Martín del Río, Aragón, Spain * M ...

(1859-1910), who Pellegrin honoured with its

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 ...

References

Zona Freshwater fish of Madagascar Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Fish described in 1907 {{Atheriniformes-stub