A team of ichthyologists have used a number of molecular techniques to help unravel the evolutionary history and intrarelationships of the family Badidae.
In case you've not kept up with the recent taxonomic changes, the single, variable species that was formerly considered a single fish - Badis badis - has been the subject of much research and has now been split into many species, and a second genera - Dario. In addition, a large number of new species have also been described from Myanmar.
The new phylogeny, which was produced by Ruber, Britz, Kullander and Zardoya was published today in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
It uses both mitochondrial and nuclear data to look at the systematics, speciation and distribution of the closely related fishes in the family.
Importantly, the study has produced well-resolved trees which support the basal split of Dario and Badis, emphasising that the recent splitting of the genus were justified.
Like the previous study, it also splits the Badis genus up into five smaller species-groups containing fish more closely related to each than to other badids.
The paper also proposes a method of vicariant speciation for the family.
For more details read the paper: Ruber L, Britz R, Kullander SO, Zardoya R. (2004) - Evolutionary and biogeographic patterns of the Badidae (Teleostei: Perciformes) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2004 Sep;32(3):1010-22.