Dawkinsia Explained

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]} Dawkins describes this as "a great honour".^[3]

Description

Adults typically measure 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]

Species

There are currently fifteen recognized species in this genus:

• 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^[4]

Notes and References

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