Dawkinsia

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Dawkinsia
Dawkinsia filamentosa -Marcus Knight.tif
Aquarium tropical de Pierrefitte-Nestalas 03082018 Barbus crayon 1.jpg
Dawkinsia apsara (cropped).jpg
D assimilis - Rahul Gautam.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cyprinidae
Subfamily: Smiliogastrinae
Genus: Dawkinsia
Pethiyagoda, Meegaskumbura & Maduwage, 2012
Type species
Leuciscus filamentosus
Synonyms

Sahyadria Raghavan, Philip, Ali & Dahanukar, 2013

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] The genus is endemic to South Asia; most species are found in the Western Ghats, with one inhabiting the Knuckles Hills of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan species colonized the island by crossing the Palk Isthmus (now the Palk Strait) during the Pliocene-Late Pleistocene. [2]

Contents

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". [3] [1] : p.80  Dawkins describes this as "a great honour". [4]

The synonym Sahyadria alludes to the local name of the Western Ghats, Sahayadri , where the two species of that group are found. [5]

Description

Adults typically measure 8–12 cm (3.1–4.7 in) SL. They do not have rostral barbels but may have maxillary barbels. Juveniles have a colour pattern consisting of three black bars on body; this persists in the adults of some species. Adults have a black, horizontally elongate blotch on the caudal peduncle. The last unbranched fin-ray of the dorsal fin is smooth and the lateral line is complete, with 18 to 22 scales. [1] : p.80 

Three species groups can be distinguished: Filamentosa, Sahyadria, and Assimilis, though this is mostly based on molecular analyses; the Filamentosa and Assimilis group have plesiomorphies, shared features that the Sahyadria group do not possess, such as the extensions of the dorsal fin rays past the membrane. All three groups do, however, share the juvenile barred patterning. [2]

Species

These are the currently recognized species in this genus: [6]

Phylogenetic analyses continually suggested that Dawkinsia was paraphyletic if Sahyadria were considered a distinct genus, [7] so the two species of Sahyadria, Sahyadria denisonii and S. chalakkudiensis, were lumped into Dawkinsia. The following cladogram is based on a Bayesian inference of the concatenated mitochondrial dataset of the cyt b + cox1 (1719 bp) gene: [2]

Dawkinsia
Assimilis group

"Sahyadria"

Filamentosa group
Dawkinsia filamentosa
⊞Show sample locales
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Dawkinsia uttara

Mitogenome analysis confirms that D. denisonii and D. chalakkudiensis are sister species; [8] they comprise the Sahyadria group.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rohan Pethiyagoda, R.; Meegaskumbura, M. & Maduwage, K. (2012). "A synopsis of the South Asian fishes referred to Puntius (Pisces: Cyprinidae)" (PDF). Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. 23 (1): 69–95. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-11-19. Retrieved 2012-07-13.
  2. 1 2 3 Sudasinghe, Hiranya; Raghavan, Rajeev; Dahanukar, Neelesh; Pethiyagoda, Rohan; Rüber, Lukas; Meegaskumbura, Madhava (29 September 2021). "Diversification and biogeography of Dawkinsia (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) in the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspot". Organisms Diversity & Evolution. 21 (4): 795–820. Bibcode:2021ODivE..21..795S. doi:10.1007/s13127-021-00515-x.
  3. ↑ Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (19 April 2023). "Family CYPRINIDAE: Subfamily SMILIOGASTRINAE Bleeker 1863 (Small Barbs)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  4. ↑ Bethan Jinkinson (19 July 2012). "Ten species named after famous people". BBC News. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
  5. ↑ Raghavan, Rajeev; Philip, Siby; Ali, Anvar; Dahanukar, Neelesh (November 2013). "Sahyadria, a new genus of barbs (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) from Western Ghats of India". Journal of Threatened Taxa. 5 (15): 4932–4938. doi:10.11609/JoTT.o3673.4932-8.
  6. ↑ Fricke, Ron; Eschmeyer, William N. & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Species in the genus Dawkinsia". Catalog of Fishes . California Academy of Sciences . Retrieved 7 January 2025.
  7. ↑ Ren, Q., Yang, L., Chang, C., & Mayden, R. L. (2020). Molecular phylogeny and divergence of major clades in the Puntius complex (Teleostei: Cypriniformes). Zoologica Scripta, 49(6), 697–709. https://doi.org/10.1111/zsc.12442
  8. ↑ Sun, Cheng-He; Lu, Chang-Hu (5 March 2024). "Comparative Analysis and Phylogenetic Study of Dawkinsia filamentosa and Pethia nigrofasciata Mitochondrial Genomes". Molecular Sciences. 25 (5): 3004. doi: 10.3390/ijms25053004 .
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