This species is normally imported alongside a smaller-growing, near-identical congener currently listed as R. cf. nantaiensis with both traded as R. candidianus.

They can be separated by snout length, which is noticeably longer in R. candidianus, and adult size with R. cf. nantaiensis reaching just 50-55 mm.

R. candidianus can be distinguished from other congeners by a combination of cha…

This species is almost identical to the wild form of ‘P.‘ semifasciolatus which is best known as the ‘golden barb’ in the aquarium hobby due to the popularity of a yellowish ornamental strain. The natural colour pattern is greenish in both species, however, and in terms of external characters they’re only reliably distinguished by the fact that ‘P.‘ semifasciolatus possesses a pair of prominent maxillary barbels wherea…

Type locality is given as ‘Boleling, northern Bali, Indonesia’ which appears to correspond to modern-day Buleleng, but this species is currently understood to have a patchy but wide distribution with a range stretching westwards from the Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia), throughout much of Vanuatu, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Fiji, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, and most recently, southern mainland China…

Commonly known as ‘Japanese rice fish’ or simply ‘rice fish’, O. latipes is well-known to science having been widely used as a model organism in genomic and experimental biology for well over a century and was the first vertebrate animal to mate in space during the mid-1990s.

It’s also been a popular aquarium fish for many years, though is less widely-available than it once was, with the ornamental ‘gold’ vari…

It’s actually sold in the aquarium hobby on a regular basis but almost always labelled as or mixed in with Misgurnus anguillicaudatus and is thus poorly documented.

Although quite simi…

An obligate dwellers of swiftly-flowing streams and headwaters containing clear, oxygen-saturated water. It inhabits riffles and runs and according to studies shows a preference for shallower zones. Substrates are generally composed of gravel, rocks, boulders or bedrock carpeted with a rich biofilm formed by algae and other micro-organisms. Aquatic plants are uncommon and while riparian/streamside vegetation may be present…

Current knowledge suggests that H. formosanus is the most widely-distributed and following Chen and Fang (2009) it can be distinguished by the following suite of characters: 3+7 dorsal-fin rays; 10-12 pectoral-fin rays (modally 11) +9-11 (modally 10)…