Nothobranchius polli

Appearance

Males are iridescent light blue. The scales have red margins. The dorsal fin is light blue with red stripes. At the outer edge of the fin is a light blue or white band. The caudal fin is marbled red and light blue ending in a thin reddish-brown band, a light blue band, and a thin black band.

The fish reaches a maximum total length of 6 cm (2.4 in).

Range and habitat

Nothobranchius polli is endemic to southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is found in temporary pools, swamps, and ditches in the upper Lufira River drainage. It is known from only three to five locations, with an extent of occurrence of 619 km2 (239 mi2) and an area of occupancy of 12 km2 (4.6 mi2).

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Breeding

Nothobranchius polli spawns at the bottom of the water column. Eggs are laid in clayey mud and develop during the dry season before hatching during the following rainy season.

In crisis

Nothobranchius polli is assessed as an endangered species on the IUCN Red List. It has a very limited range and its population size has been observed to be declining. Its fragmented habitat is threatened by agriculture, mining, dam construction, and the fishing industry.

Nothobranchius polli 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 Nothobranchius polli, Wikidata item Q9050812. 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.