Achankovil

This species is traded under several names including 'royal danio', 'blue-spotted hill trout', and 'blue-dotted mirror fish'. It can be distinguished from congeners by possessing a single row of bluish-green spots along the length of the body, white margins on the dorsal and anal fins, 37-38+1 lateral line scales, and fleshy rudi...

An obligate dweller of shallow, fast-flowing, highly-oxygenated headwaters and minor tributaries characterised by stretches of riffles and runs broken up by pools or cascades in some cases. Substrates are normally composed of smaller rocks, sand and gravel with jumbles of boulders, and whil...

Wild examples are rarely-seen in the aquarium hobby although selectively-bred ornamental strains are widely-available for which care is identical. These are normally traded as 'red' or 'yellow' chromide and have a solid yellow-orange colour pattern with no dark elements. It exhibits a widespread sympatry with the con...

It can be distinguished from other members of the genus by the following characters: dark longitudinal stripe on body, extending from eye to caudal peduncle; scattered tubercles present on lower jaw; 14½-16½ branched anal-fin rays; pelvic-fin long, reaching beyond anus.

This species is most easily told apart from its only congener P. dayi by lacking (vs. possessing) two dark, irregular lateral stripes on the head and body, and a shorter caudal-fin in males. The results of phylogenetic analyses by Rüber et al. (2006) suggest that Pseudosphromenus is most closely-related to Malpulutta in an evolutionary sense.

This species has a chaotic taxonomic history with certain issues still to be resolved. While the name P. mahecola was misapplied to members of the genus Dawkinsia for over a century the fish itself has been widely misidentified as the congener P. amphibius (Valenciennes 1842). Its identity was partially resolved by Pethiyagoda and Kottelat (2005b) who demonstrated that though valid P. mahecola is not a Dawkinsia spp. but rather a smaller, relatively plain species with a single dark blotc...

This species was considered synonymous with the Indochinese congener C. micropeltes for over a century before being revalidated in 2011. Like in C. micropeltes colour pattern varies depending on the age of the fish. Juveniles possess two longitudinal black stripes on the head and body with the are...