On a record of Puntius gelius (Hamilton, 1822) (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae) from
Tamil Nadu
J.D. Marcus Knight
Flat ‘L’, Sri BalajiApartments, 7th Main Road, Dhandeeswaram, Velachery, Chennai, Tami Nadu 600042, India
Email: jdmarcusknight@yahoo.co.in
Date of publication (online): 26 March 2010
Date of publication (print): 26 March 2010
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor: R.J. Ranjit Daniels
Manuscript details:
Ms # o2298
Received 27 August 2009
Finally accepted 08 January 2010
Citation: Knight, J.D.M. (2010). On a record of Puntius gelius(Hamilton, 1822) (Teleostei: Cypriniformes:Cyprinidae) from Tamil Nadu. Journal of Threatened Taxa 2(3): 786-787.
Copyright: © J.D. Marcus Knight 2010. Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium
for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate
credit to the authors and the source of publication.
Acknowledgements: I am thankful to Dr. K. Rema Devi, Officer in Charge, Marine Biology Regional
Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Chennai for her critical review and
guidance and to Dr. T.J. Indra, for sharing her
unpublished data with me. I also
thank Mr. G. Das, Care Earth, Chennai, for his help in the collection of the
specimens.
Fishes of the genus Puntius are prolific and are known to occupy all niches (Jayaram 1999). These fishes have been well studied and have been exploited for the
aquarium trade and transported throughout the world. One such fish is Puntius gelius, which was first described by
Hamilton-Buchanan (1822) in his work on the fishes of the river Ganges. In the same work he also described
another fish very similar to P. gelius but for the characteristic spots
on fin bases, called P. canius which was later synonimized as P. gelius by Day (1878). P. gelius is a colorful fish which grows to
a maximum of 5cm in length (Menon 1999). Though this fish was described more
than a hundred years ago and has since been exported throughout the world by
the ornamental fish trade, it is not very popular among hobbyists in India (Talwar & Jhingran 1991).
P. gelius is described as elongated with body depth 3 to 3.5 times in the
total length. It has fairly large scales which are dotted and an incomplete lateral line which
ceases after the fifth or the sixth scale. The body is honey-colored with a black band over the tail
anterior to the caudal fin and another less distinct one behind the base of the
caudal fin. The dorsal fin is
yellowish with a black spot at the base and so are the ventral and the anal
fins (Hamilton-Buchanan 1822; Day 1878). P. gelius has been recorded from
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam
and Bangladesh (Day 1878; Menon 1951; Talwar & Jhingran 1991; Jayaram 1999; Menon 1999). According to Menon(1999) the species is rare.
During a fish survey I collected, P. gelius (Image 1) from
slow flowing water with a muddy substrate and abundant aquatic vegetation in
the Chembarampakkam tank situated in the outskirts of
Chennai. The specimens collected
matched perfectly with the description given by Hamilton-Buchanan (1822) and
Day (1878). The reason for this
fish not being recorded in the earlier works can be attributed to its small
size and rare occurrence.
Attempts to document the ichthyofauna in and around Chennai have been on for the
past one-hundred years. One of the first works was
done by Raj (1916) followed by Venkateshwarulu et al.
(1975), Raghunathan (1978), Devi et
al. (1999) and recently by Daniels & Rajagopal(2004). P. gelius has not been recorded in any of these works. Interestingly the range of P. gelius extends further south as there is an unpublished report of the species from Paravanar River, CuddaloreDistrict in eastern Tamil Nadu (T.J. Indra, pers.
comm.).
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