A synopsis of the South Asian fishes referred to Puntius - Verlag Dr ...

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a
b
Fig. 10. Barbus bovanicus, AMS B.7829, lectotype, 95.1 mm SL; India: Bhavani River, Tamil Nadu; a, photograph;
b, radiograph.
their ‘pentazona group’ (‘S.’ everetti, ‘S.’ lateristriga,
‘S.’ pentazona and ‘S.’ rhomboocellatus) possesses
them; Taki et al. (1978) also distinguished the two
groups by their colour patterns.
Dravidia. Menon (1999) chose the junior name
Labeo melanampyx Day, 1865 over its senior subjective
synonym, Cirrhinus fasciatus Jerdon, 1849 (the
type species of Dravidia) citing Art. 23(b) of ICZN
(1985), on the grounds that the former was “a
favourite aquarium fish and several aquarium
journals mention this species as Puntius melanampyx.
A change is not considered desirable.”
However, Art. 23(b) of ICZN (1985) requires that
such a case is to be referred to the Commission
for a ruling, which has not been done in the 13
years following Menon (1999). As such, we follow
Arts. 23.1 and 22.9.3 of ICZN (1999) and use the
senior synonym C. fasciatus, which anyway is also
the name in prevailing usage (e. g., Silas, 1956;
Jayaram, 1991; Talwar & Jhingran, 1991; Arunachalam,
2000; Bhat, 2005).
Three additional South Asian species included
in Puntius by previous authors (e. g.,
Jayaram, 1991; Talwar & Jhingran, 1991) bear two
pairs of barbels and a smooth last unbranched
dorsal-fin ray: ‘P.’ bovanicus, ‘P.’ carnaticus and
‘P.’ jerdoni. Barbus bovanicus (AMS B.7829, syntype,
95.1 mm SL, here designated lectotype; Fig. 10)
has 9 branched dorsal-fin rays, 23 lateral-line
scales on body, eye in upper half of head, thick,
fleshy lips, and the lower lip present medially: it
is apparently a Neolissochilus. It further differs
from all species of Puntius, Systomus, Dawkinsia,
Pethia and Dravidia in possessing 22 (vs. 13-19)
caudal vertebrae and 6 (vs. 3-5) supraneurals. We
note in passing that the spellings bovanicus and
bovianicus were published simultaneously, in plate
138 fig. 1, and on page 566, of Day (1878), both of
which were released on 1 December 1878 (see
Whitehead & Talwar, 1976: 54 and references
therein). In keeping with subsequent usage, as
first reviser we give B. bovanicus precedence over
B. bovianicus.
Pethiyagoda et al.: Synopsis of South Asian Puntius