The red rainbowfish or salmon-red rainbowfish (''Glossolepis incisa'') is a species of

rainbowfish Rainbowfishes are small, colourful freshwater fishes belonging to the Family (biology), family Melanotaeniidae, found in northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea (including islands in Cenderawasih Bay and Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia), Sula ...

from

Lake Sentani Lake Sentani is a tropical, shallow, and at low-altitude open lake located at the northeast extremity of the Jayapura Regency in the Indonesian province of Papua, about from the provincial capital, Jayapura City. It is located just to the sou ...

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Austral ...

, Indonesia. Belonging to the family Melanotaeniidae, in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Melanotaeniinae Rainbowfishes are small, colourful freshwater fishes belonging to the family Melanotaeniidae, found in northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea (including islands in Cenderawasih Bay and Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia), Sulawesi and Madagasc ...

, the Australian rainbowfishes. It is threatened in its native range, but easily bred in captivity and common in the

aquarium An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...

trade.

Description

The males are bright red and with age grow a high back. The females are olive brown in colour. Their colours change depending on their mood, but subordinate males do not display bright colours. They grow up to in size, but typically attain a smaller size of around .

Breeding

They are an egg scattering species and they scatter their eggs among clumps of vegetation. The eggs take about 7 days to hatch.

Nutrition

''Glossolepis incisus'' is an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that regularly consumes significant quantities of both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize t ...

and in captivity it will eat most common commercial aquarium foods readily. It may be slightly more carnivorous than most of the Australian rainbowfish.

Conservation status

The

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

classifies ''Glossolepis incisa'' as endangered. This is because of the rapidly increasing human population around this fish's only natural habitat and

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

such as

tilapia Tilapia ( ) is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the coelotilapine, coptodonine, heterotilapine, oreochromine, pelmatolapiine, and tilapiine tribes (formerly all were "Tilapiini"), with the economically mos ...

Distribution

This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

and its tributaries near

Jayapura Jayapura (formerly Hollandia (1910-1962), Kota Baru (1962-1963), Soekarnopura (1963-1968)) is the capital city, capital and List of Indonesian cities by population, largest city of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of Papua (provi ...

in Papua, IndonesiaRed Rainbowfish Fact Sheet
/ref> (a range it shares with the related '' Chilatherina sentaniensis'').

Taxonomy

''Glossolepis incisa'' is the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of the genus ''

Glossolepis ''Glossolepis'' is a genus of rainbowfishes from New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Locate ...

'' and was described by Max C.W. Weber in 1907. The name is virtually always misspelt as "incisus." However, the genus name (''Glossolepis)'' is feminine, and the specific taxon must follow form.

References

Red rainbowfish Freshwater fish of Western New Guinea Fishkeeping Taxa named by Max Carl Wilhelm Weber Fish described in 1907 {{Atheriniformes-stub