Re: [RML] newbie question

caryho at ix.netcom.com
Fri, 04 Jul 1997 12:49:44 GMT

In The Dawn of the Third Age Frauley/Elson <fraulels at minet.ca> woke me
from my contemplation by writing:

>hello all,
> As a relative newbie at rainbows and rainbow list-lurking, I have a
>simple question. The focus of the rainbow hobby is geographical, with
>Australia and New Guinea species.
> Is there any more than a 'cosmetic', convergent connection between
>Pseudomugils and Telematherina - ie, would you classify Telematherina as
>"rainbows"?

Actually the Rainbowfish families where just reorganized.
Pseudomugilinae is a subfamily of the Melaninaeniidae family.
This subfamily is then broken into the two tribes, which the fish you
mention belong. This brought these fish taxonomically closer they were
considered before. By tradition the term "rainbowfish" only applies to
fish of the Melanotaeniinae subfamily and "blue-eyes" belongs to fish
of the former family Pseudomugilidae, which is now the tribe
Pseudomugilini. I guess its part of the problem when we give common
names to groupings of fish. They tend to be less flexible than the
taxonomic structure can often be.

Pseudomugilinae-|-Pseudomugilini (Tribe)- |-Pseudomugil
| |-Kiunga
| |-Scaturiginichthy
|
|-Telmatherinini (Tribe)- |-Kalyptatherina
|-Paratherina
|-Telmatherina
|-Tominanga
From
Dyer & Chernoff. 1996. Phylogenetic relationships among atheriniform
fishes. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 117:1-69.

Cary Hostrawser

My Home Page http://pw2.netcom.com/~caryho/home.html

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