Seven new species of the miniature cyprinid Sundadanio have been described in a review of the genus published in a recent issue of the journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters.
Kevin Conway, Maurice Kottelat and Heok Hui Tan name S. echinus, S. margarition, S. retiarius and S. rubellus from Borneo, S. goblinus from Sumatra, S. atomus and S. gargula from Singkep and Bangka islands respectively.
The seven new species are distinguished from each other by differences in colour pattern, degree of scalation in the caudal peduncle, the length of the snout and the depth of the body.
The true S. axelrodi is restricted to Bintan Island, which is an area where very little collecting for the aquarium trade has been carried out. Therefore, almost all of the fish (and different colour forms) currently identified as S. axelrodi in the aquarium trade are one of the seven new species instead; for instance, the red form is S. rubellus, and the green form is R. margarition.
For more information, see the paper: Conway, KW, M Kottelat & HH Tan (2011) Review of the Southeast Asian miniature cyprinid genus Sundadanio (Ostariophysi: Cyprinidae) with descriptions of seven new species from Indonesia and Malaysia. Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters 22, pp. 251–288.
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