Dario urops: a new fish species from the Western Ghats

Scientists have described a new species of fish from the Barapole tributary of the Valapattanam river of the Western Ghats. The scientists, Ralf Britz from the Natural history museum London, and Anvar Ali from the Conservation Research Group (CRG), St. Alberts College Ernakulam, and Siby Philip from the University of Porto, Portugal and CRG, found the species in a clear water stream, in Southern Karnataka, connecting to the Barapole tributary of the Valapattanam river. The study has been reported in today’s issue of Zootaxa, an international journal of zoological systematics.

Live Image of the new fish taken by Ralf Britz

The new species is named as Dario urops. The specific name (urops) is derived from Greek words ‘ουρά’ meaning ‘tail’ and ‘ὄψ’ meaning ‘eye’, denoting the conspicuous “eye-spot” on the caudal peduncle. This makes it the first discovery of badid fishes from the Western Ghats. Earlier 19 species of Badids were known from North-Eastern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and South East Asia, and this find from the South of India, extends the distribution of this group of fishes as a whole south to the Western Ghats.

The new species measures a maximum up to 3 centimetres.  This attractive fish is has a background colour of yellowish beige, and the fins have a bluish-gray hue. The type material of the new species is housed at the museum of the Conservation Research Group, St. Albert’s College Cochin. Nikhil Sood, a Bangalore based aquarist and his Swiss friend, Benjamin Harink were the first people to discover the spot from where Dario urops was collected, and subsequently introduced the Indo-British Research Team to this location. Incidentally, Dario urops was first collected by Sir Francis Day more than 130 years ago from Wayanad and kept at the British museum, without formal description.

This find highlights the fact that the ichthyo-diversity of the Western Ghats is still not fully known and in general the importance of Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot. Researchers from the same group had identified another fish Pristolepis rubripinnis, which was published in yesterdays Zootaxa. Concerted and systematic exploratory survey for fishes in the Western Ghats are needed  to identify and preserve the valuable ichthyo-diversity.

References:

Ralf Britz, Anvar Ali & Siby Philip, 2012. Dario urops, a new species of badid fish from the western Ghats, southern India (Teleostei: Percomorpha: Badidae). Zootaxa, 3348: 63 – 68.