Endangered
Eyespot rasbora
Brevibora dorsiocellata
This small fish is a popular aquarium fish, having been one of the species featured in the landmark textbook Exotic Aquarium Fishes by Dr William T.
Appearance
The eyespot rasbora is an elongate fish, with a pointed snout, whose base colour is a reflective, metallic silver, though under some lighting conditions, the fish can take on a yellowish hue, with a slight pink flush present in the ventral area of the body between the operculum and the pelvic fins (corresponding roughly to the sac enclosing the alimentary canal). The dorsal fin is positioned approximately equidistant between the operculum and the caudal fin, and it is the marking upon this fin that gives rise to the common names of the fish: the base colour is white, with a large rounded black oval overlaid upon the base colour, in appearance fancifully likened to an eye. Males are cited as possessing a pinkish or reddish hue to the caudal fin during the breeding season (Walker, p. 98) whilst females lack this colour.
A fully mature individual fish attains a standard length of 6 cm. There is a smaller variety, the emerald eye rasbora, that attains a standard length of 3 – 4 cm.
Range and habitat
It is a native of Malaysia and Sumatra. It is an inhabitant of streams and other waterbodies with an acidic pH, at least some of these being situated in habitats classified as peat swamp forests (more details covered in the Habitat section below). It inhabits streams and other watercourses characterised by a mineral-deficient and acidic chemistry, featuring dissolved humic acids.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
It is a typical rasbora with respect to breeding, namely it is a scatterer of non-adhesive eggs, choosing fine-leaved aquatic foliage as the repository for its eggs. Even so, success at the captive breeding of this species is heavily contingent upon water chemistry - the species is only likely to spawn in soft, acidic water matching that of its natural habitat, and thus particularly scrupulous attention to water chemistry is required if captive breeding is to be attempted.
Once the matter of water chemistry has been settled, the breeding aquarium should be furnished with fine-leaved aquatic foliage. Cabomba and Myriophyllyum are suitable choices, and Java moss is likely to be a useful addition to the breeding aquarium as well.
In crisis
Eyespot rasbora is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Eyespot rasbora, Wikidata item Q760310. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
