The Roseline Shark was recorded from an aquarium shop in Dhaka city (Galib, 2010). It is also known as Red Lined Torpedo Barb, Bleeding Eye Barb or Denison’s Barb and native to fast-flowing hill streams and rivers of the state of Kerala, in South India (Wikipedia, 2010). This fish was introduced in 2009 from India and Thailand by the aquarium fish importer (Galib and Mohsin, 2010).
New research by teams of scientists from India had suggested that the species was being over-exploited for the aquarium trade, potentially placing it at risk of extinction and thus the government of Kerala in India has banned fishing for the endangered barb Puntius denisonii (Wikipedia, 2010).
Systematic position
Class: Actinopterigii
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cyprinidae
Genus: Puntius
Species: P. denisonii
Synonyms
Barbus denisonii (Day, 1865)
Crossocheilus denisonii (Day, 1865)
Labeo denisonii Day, 1865
Morphology
The fish is characterized by a torpedo shaped body with silver scales, a red line running from their nose, through the eye, back towards the middle of the body, and below the red line, a black line that runs the length of the fish to the tail. As they mature, a distinctive green/blue marking on top of the head develops. Its eyes are included in the three lines of White, red and black (Galib, 2010).
The fish will grow to a maximum length of 15 cm or 6 inches (Wikipedia, 2010j) whereas maximum total length recorded in Bangladesh was 8 cm (Galib, 2010).
Food and feeding
Takes commercially available aquarium feeds in aquarium (Galib, 2010).
Breeding and gender differentiation
Increasing numbers of P. denisonii are now being bred in captivity for the ornamental fish trade, both in India and elsewhere (Wikipedia, 2010).
Economic importance
Used as an ornamental fish, retail price recorded BDT 3,000 per pair (Galib, 2010; Galib and Mohsin, 2010).
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References
Galib SM. 2010. Cultured and Ornamental Exotic Fish Diversity of Bangladesh, MS dissertation, Department of Fisheries, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh, 169 pp.
Galib SM and Mohsin ABM. 2010. Exotic ornamental fishes of Bangladesh, Bangladesh J. Prog. Sci. & Tech. 8(2): 255-258.
Wikipedia. 2010. Red line torpedo barb. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, retrieved on January 01, 2010; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_line_torpedo_barb.
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