Ricefish
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Adrianichthys |
The ricefishes are a family (Adrianichthyidae) of small ray-finned fish that are found in fresh and brackish waters from India to Japan and out into the Indo-Australian Archipelago, most notably Sulawesi. About 27 species, some extremely rare and endangered, and some 2-4 may already be extinct.
Most of these species are quite small, with maximum lengths in the 2-4 cm range, making them of interest for aquaria.
Several species carry their eggs attached to the body between their pelvic fins.
The medaka, Oryzias latipes, is a popular model organism used in research in developmental biology.
Genetic study of the family suggests that it originally evolved on Sulawesi and spread from there to the Asian mainland; the supposed genus Xenopoecilus are apparently unrelated, morphologically divergent species of Oryzias (Takehana et al., 2005).
[edit] References
- Takehana, Yusuke; Naruse, Kiyoshi & Sakaizumi, Mitsuru (2005): Molecular phylogeny of the medaka fishes genus Oryzias (Beloniformes: Adrianichthyidae) based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 36(2): 417–428. DOI:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.01.016
