A study of the phylogenetic relationships and a taxonomic revision of the ricefish family Adrianichthyidae has revealed the family to consist of two genera and 28 species, with one being described as new.
The study by Lynne Parenti, which was published in a recent issue of Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, looked at 85 morphological features of the medaka fishes.
Parenti discovered the ricefish family to compose of two monophyletic lineages: Adrianichthys and Oryzias (with species previously placed in Horaichthys and Xenopoecilus now in the latter genus).
Adrianichthys comprises four species (A. kruyti, A. oophorus, A. poptae and A. roseni) from Lake Poso, Sulawesi while Oryzias consists of 24 species found throughout the fresh and brackish waters of Central, South and Southeast Asia and the Indo-Malay-Philippines Archipelago as far east as Timor.
The author also describes a new species of Oryzias from Lake Lindu in Sulawesi as O. bonneorum, naming the species after C. Bonne and J. Bonne-Wepster, systematic entomologists who worked throughout Indonesia in the early 20th century and collected fish to determine if they were eating mosquito larvae.
Oryzias bonneorum is distinguished from O. sarasinorum, the other species endemic to Lake Lindu, by its relatively deeper body (17"20% standard length vs. 13"15), male pigment pattern with up to nine brownish vertical bars on the side of the body (vs. a silvery lateral band), 36"39 scales in the lateral series (vs. 70"75), and 31"32 (vs. 34) vertebrae.
For more information, see the paper: Parenti, LR (2008) A phylogenetic analysis and taxonomic revision of ricefishes, Oryzias and relatives (Beloniformes, Adrianichthyidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 154, pp. 494"610.