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Nothobranchius

{{Short description|Genus of fishes}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| image = Nothobranchius rachovii male 450px.jpg

| image_caption = Nothobranchius rachovii

| taxon = Nothobranchius

| authority = Peters, 1868

| type_species = Cyprinodon orthonotus

| type_species_authority = (Peters, 1844)

| synonyms =

Adiniops Myers, 1924

Fundulosoma Ahl, 1924

Zononothobranchius Radda, 1969

Aphyobranchius Wildekamp, 1977

Paranothobranchius Seegers, 1985

}}

Nothobranchius is a genus of small, freshwater killifish, classified in the family Nothobranchiidaevan der Laan, R., Eschmeyer, W.N. & Fricke, R. (2014): [http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2014/f/zt03882p230.pdf Family-group names of Recent fishes.] Zootaxa, 3882 (2): 1–230. in the order Cyprinodontiformes. There are about a hundred species in the genus, many with very small distributions.{{FishBase_genus | genus = Nothobranchius | month = September | year = 2018 }} They are primarily native to East Africa from Sudan to northern South Africa, whereas a dozen species are found in the upper Congo River Basin; the greatest species richness is in Tanzania.

Nothobranchius typically inhabit ephemeral pools that are filled only during the monsoon season, and show extreme life-history adaptations to survive the dry season. When their habitats dry up, the adult fish die and the eggs survive encased in the clay during the dry season. The embryos survive the dry season by entering diapause, facilitated by their specialized eggs that have a very hard chorion and are resistant to desiccation and hypoxia.Alexander Dorn, Zuzana Musilová, Matthias Platzer, Kathrin Reichwald and Alessandro Celler (2014) [http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-014-0210-3 The strange case of East African annual fishes: aridification correlates with diversification for a savannah aquatic group?] BMC Evolutionary Biology 14:210. DOI: 10.1186/s12862-014-0210-3 These species reach maturity very quickly once diapause is broken and have a very short life span; one species, Nothobranchius furzeri, reaches maturity in 17 days and seldom lives beyond 6 months.

Etymology

From Greek νοθοσ / nothos: false, spurious, and βράγχια / bránchia: gill.Eulexis-web - « Le Bailly » 2020: [https://outils.biblissima.fr/fr/eulexis-web/?lemma=&dict=Bailly read on line]

Species

File:Nothobranchius flammicomantis.png, male]]

File:Nothobranchius kilomberoensis.png, male]]

File:Nothobranchius_korthausae_pair.png pair, female in foreground]]

File:Nothobranchius polli.png

There are currently 96 recognized species in this genus:

{{ResearchGatePub|389627266}}

References

{{Reflist}}

{{Taxonbar|from=Q144094}}

Category:Nothobranchiidae

Category:Freshwater fish genera

Category:Taxa named by Wilhelm Peters