Farlowella

Farlowella
Farlowella acus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Siluriformes
Family: Loricariidae
Subfamily: Loricariinae
Genus: Farlowella
C. H. Eigenmann & R. S. Eigenmann, 1889
Type species
Acestra acus
Kner, 1853

Farlowella is a genus of fish in the family Loricariidae and subfamily Loricariinae native to South America. This genus is broadly distributed in Amazon, Orinoco, Paraná and coastal rivers of the Guyana Shield. It is absent from the Pacific slope of the Andes and from the coastal rivers of the Brazilian Shield.[1] Many of these species are kept in aquarium.[2] This genus has a unique body shape that resembles of a thin stick of wood. The body is slender and elongate, often with a pronounced rostrum and a brownish color with two lateral dark stripes beginning at the tip of the rostrum, passing over the eyes and ending at the tail, which are periodically interrupted on the caudal peduncle.[1]

Taxonomy

The genus is placed within the tribe Harttiini of the subfamily Loricariinae. Morphological, molecular and phylogenetic studies have placed Farlowella as sister to Sturisoma.[1] The genus name of Farlowella is named in honor of William Gilson Farlow, a famous American botanist of Harvard University whose main work was working with algae plants, the favorite food of this slender catfish.[3]

Species

There are currently 28 recognized species in this genus:

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/2/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.