Channa harcourtbutleri

Channa harcourtbutleri is a species of snakehead endemic to Inle Lake^[1] and surroundings^[2] in Myanmar. Locally called nga ohn-ma, among aquarists it is known as one of the "dwarf snakeheads", but no significant import for aquarists is known. It is one of the smallest species of snakehead and has a length of 20 cm. The specific name honors Sir Harcourt Butler, a British governor in the region.^[1]

This was for a long time considered to be a junior synonym of Channa gachua. In fact, both species closely resemble each other. The article on its revalidation^[3] only mentions three discriminating features, such as the missing ocellus in the dorsal fin of a juvenile Channa harcourtbutleri. It is suspected to be a mouthbrooder and eats a wide range of foods, including arthropods and small fish, but unlike in some relatives, no frogs.

References

Sources

• Annandale, Nelson Theodore (1918): Fish and fisheries of the Inle Lake. Records of the Indian Museum 14(1): 33-64. HTML fulltext
• Ng, H.H.; Ng, Peter K.L. & Britz, Ralf (1999): Channa harcourtbutleri (Annandale, 1918): a valid species of snakehead (Perciformes: Channidae) from Myanmar. Journal of South Asian Natural History 4: 57-63. HTML fulltext
• Roberts, Tyson R. (2007): The "Celestial pearl danio", a new genus and species of colourful minute cyprinid fish from Myanmar (Pisces: Cypriniformes). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 55(1): 131-140. PDF fulltext

External links

Wikispecies has information related to: Channa harcourtbutleri

• "Channa harcourtbutleri". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 18 April 2006. 
• Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2005). "Channa harcourtbutleri" in FishBase. November 2005 version.
• snakeheads.org