Galaxy rasbora placed in new genus

Galaxy rasbora placed in new genus


"Microrasbora sp 'Galaxy' has been officially described and placed in a new genus. Tyson Roberts today described the new species as Celestichthys margaritatus in a paper in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. He has also given the fish the new common name of Celestial pearl danio. Roberts says that the new species is a member of the cyprinid subfamily Danioninae and is most closely related to two danionins from Inle Lake in Myanmar, Microrasbora rubescens and "Microrasbora" erythromicron.


"Prior to its official description, the fish was only tentatively considered a member of the Microrasbora genus, on account of its similarity to M. erythromicron. Roberts believes that Celestichthys margaritatus is so different to other Microrasbora that it warrants a genus of their own, possibly along with "Microrasbora" erythromicron. The fish, which was discovered in August 2006, was first covered by Practical Fishkeeping in September and featured in the Interesting Imports column in the December 2006 issue of the magazine."