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There's a bit of an upheaval going on in the Barb world at the moment. Anyone here keeping Arulius Barbs? Watch this space and read on!

It all started when those nice people at Practical Fishkeeping magazine in the UK sent a photographer to capture some interesting Barbs on film - the fishes in question had been labelled as Barbus tambrapamiei, a recently described species that is part of the filamentosus complex and which is becoming something of a 'hot ticket' among Barb keepers here in the UK.

At first, all was well. Detailed examination of the photos (plus acquisition of the collection data, which was supplied to them via GPS) seemed to fit the new fish.

Then along came something to throw a spanner in the works.

Maurice Kottelat and Rothan Pethiyagoda published a new paper, which looks set to turn the textbooks on their heads. Now Pethiyagoda already has numerous fishkeeping and taxonomic 'firsts' to his credit - including the rare Canara Pealspot Cichlid, Etroplus canarensis, and the Denison's Barb - and Kottelat is VERY well known to Asian fishkeeping specialists as the man who renamed the Clown Loach as Chromobotia macracantha and the Pigmy Chain Loach as Yasuhiotakia sidthimunki. So they have, shall we say, an established provenance in the field - oh look, there's one of my favourite words again!

The paper in question was a revision of the Puntius fiamentosus complex, and this included an extensive dichotomous key containing details for discriminating between the assorted species in the complex. Upon applying the key to the photographed specimens, something was apparently amiss. The details for tambrapamiei did NOT match the PFK photographs, instead, the photographs keyed out in the dichotomous key as - wait for it - Puntius arulius ... !!!

After contacting various experts (including Pethiyagoda himself) the conclusion was ... that the new Barbs that had been photographed were in fact Puntius arulius, and that the Barbs that had been in the trade and sold for fifty years under the name of Puntius arulius were in fact Puntius tambrapamiei ... !!!

So, looks like the textbooks are going to have to be rewritten.

Any of you here who have 'Arulius Barbs', take note of this!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002