A new freshwater fish, Pristolepis Rubripinnis was discovered from Pampa and Chalakudy rivers in Kerala during a collaborative taxonomic study carried out by Indian and British ichthyologists, on Wednesday.
The study was led by Ralf Britz of Natural History Museum, London and K Krishnakumar of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (Atree), Alappuzha and Fibin Baby of Conservation Research Group (CRG), St Albert’s College, Kochi.
Krishnakumar told TOI they published this study report on Wednesday. “At present, only four species of the genus Pristolepis are considered to be valid and Pristolepis Rubripinnis differs from all other species by its colour pattern. The genus Pristolepis comprise moderate-sized (15-20cm) fishes and restricted to freshwater streams in Southern India and most of Indochina and the Sunda Islands,” he said.
“At present, 189 species of endemic freshwater fishes have been reported from the Western Ghats. We need to conduct more studies on the fishes of Western Ghats. The discovery of a second species of Pristolepis in the southern part of the Western Ghats comes 163 years after Thomas Jerdon described Pristolepis Maginatus from the erstwhile Malabar,” he said.
2012 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.