Dawkinsia

Dawkinsia
Dawkinsia exclamatio
Dawkinsia apsara
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Cypriniformes
Family:	Cyprinidae
Subfamily:	Barbinae
Genus:	Dawkinsia Pethiyagoda, Meegaskumbura & Maduwage, 2012
Type species
Leuciscus filamentosus Valenciennes, 1844
Synonyms
Sahyadria

Dawkinsia is a genus of cyprinid fishes from freshwater in South India and Sri Lanka. It was split off (i.e., reclassified) from genus Puntius in 2012.[1]

Etymology

Dawkinsia is named after the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in recognition of his "contribution to the public understanding of science, particularly, of evolutionary science".[2][1]: p.80  Dawkins describes this as "a great honour".[3]

Description

Adults typically measure 8–12 cm (3.1–4.7 in) SL. They do not have rostral barbels but might have maxillary barbels. Juveniles have a colour pattern consisting of three black bars on body; this persists to adult stage in some species. Adults have a black, horizontally elongate blotch on the caudal peduncle.[1]: p.80 

Species

There are currently fifteen recognized species in this genus:[4]

• Dawkinsia apsara (Katwate, Marcus Knight, Anoop, Raghavan & Dahanukar, 2020) (mascara barb)
• Dawkinsia arulius (Jerdon, 1849) (Arulius barb)
• Dawkinsia assimilis (Jerdon, 1849)
• Dawkinsia austellus Katwate, Marcus Knight, Anoop, Raghavan & Dahanukar, 2020 (Austellus barb)
• Dawkinsia chalakkudiensis (Menon, Rema Devi & Thobias, 1999)
• Dawkinsia crassa Katwate, Marcus Knight, Anoop, Raghavan & Dahanukar, 2020 (Rounded filament barb)
• Dawkinsia denisonii (F. Day, 1865) (Denison barb; red line torpedo barb)
• Dawkinsia exclamatio (Pethiyagoda & Kottelat, 2005)
• Dawkinsia filamentosa (Valenciennes, 1844) (Blackspot/Filament barb)
• Dawkinsia rohani (Rema Devi, Indra & Knight, 2010)
• Dawkinsia rubrotincta (Jerdon, 1849)
• Dawkinsia singhala (Duncker, 1912)
• Dawkinsia srilankensis (Senanayake, 1985) (Blotched filamented barb)
• Dawkinsia tambraparniei (Silas, 1954)
• Dawkinsia uttara Katwate, Apte & Raghavan, 2020[5]

References

1. Rohan Pethiyagoda, R.; Meegaskumbura, M. & Maduwage, K. (2012). "A synopsis of the South Asian fishes referred to Puntius (Pisces: Cyprinidae)" (PDF). Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. 23 (1): 69–95.
2. Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara. "Family CYPRINIDAE: Subfamily SMILIOGASTRINAE Bleeker 1863 (Small Barbs)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
3. Bethan Jinkinson (19 July 2012). "Ten species named after famous people". BBC News. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
4. Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Species in genus Dawkinsia". FishBase. July 2024 version.
5. Unmesh Katwate; Deepak Apte; Rajeev Raghavan (2020). "Dawkinsia uttara, a new species of filament barb (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) from the Western Ghats of India". Vertebrate Zoology. 70 (4): 717–730.