Dwarf snakehead is a term coined by aquarists to describe a group of Channa snakehead fishes growing to about maximum. They are found in freshwater habitats (often streams) in South and Southeast Asia, and southern China.Endruweit, M. (2017). Description of a new dwarf snakehead (Perciformes: Channidae) from western Yunnan. Vertebrate Zoology 67(2): 173-178.
The following snakeheads belong to this group:Thakur, V. R.; Raymond, J. J. A.; Halalludin, Beni; Kiruba-Sankar, R.; Knight, J. D. M.; Praveenraj, J. (2018). Channa royi (Teleostei: Channidae): a new species of snakehead from Andaman Islands, India. Indian Journal of Fisheries 65(4).Lalramliana, J. D. M. Knight, D. V. Lalhlimpuia and M. Singh (2018). Integrative taxonomy reveals a new species of snakehead fish, Channa stiktos (Teleostei: Channidae), from Mizoram, North Eastern India. Vertebrate Zoology 68 (2): 165-175.
Channa andrao Channa aurantipectoralis Channa baramensis Channa bipuli Channa bleheri Channa brunnea Channa burmanica Channa coccinea = Channa sp. Ignis Channa gachua Channa harcourtbutleri Channa kelaartii Channa limbata Channa lipor Channa melanostigma Channa orientalis Channa ornatipinnis Channa panaw Channa pardalis Channa pulchra Channa pyrophthalmus = Channa sp. fire and ice. Channa quinquefasciata Channa rara Channa royi Channa rubora = Channa sp. Burmese red rim rainbow or Channa sp. redfin. Channa shingon Channa stewartii Channa stiktos
Some of these are borderline dwarf snakeheads, slightly surpassing in maximum length (e.g., C. pulchra has been called a dwarf snakehead,Britz, R. (2007). Channa ornatipinnis and C. pulchra, two new species of dwarf snakeheads from Myanmar (Teleostei: Channidae). Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwat. 18(4): 335-344. but may reach ). In contrast, the smallest dwarf snakehead species are less than .
Several of these only recently received their scientific name, but were already known among aquarists before. Examples of this are C. andrao (described 2013, previously known as C. sp. "Lal Cheng" or "blue bleheri"),Britz, R. (2013): Channa andrao, a new species of dwarf snakehead from West Bengal, India (Teleostei: Channidae). Zootaxa, 3731 (2): 287–294. C. pardalis (described 2016, previously known as C. sp. "Meghalaya leopard"),Knight, J.D.M. (2016): Channa pardalis, a new species of snakehead (Teleostei: Channidae) from Meghalaya, northeastern India. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 8 (3): 8583-8589. C. quinquefasciata (described 2018, previously known as C. sp. "five stripe"),Praveenraj, J., A. Uma, J. D. M. Knight, N. Moulitharan, S. Balasubramanian, K. Bineesh and H. Bleher (2018). Channa quinquefasciata, a new species of snakehead (Teleostei: Channidae) from Torsa River, North Bengal, India. aqua, International Journal of Ichthyology 24 (4): 141-152. C. torsaensis (described 2018, previously known as C. sp. "cobalt blue"),Dey, A., Ruksa Nur, B. Raychowdhury, D. Sarkar, L.K. Singh and S. Barat (2018). A New Ornamental Species of Snakehead Fish (Teleostei: Channidae) from River Torsa of West Bengal, India. International Journal of Pure & Applied Bioscience 6(6): 497-503. and C. brunnea (described 2019, previously known as C. sp. "chocolate bleheri").Praveenraj, J., A. Uma, N. Moulitharan and R. Kannan (2019). Channa brunnea, a new species of snakehead (Teleostei: Channidae) from West Bengal, India. Zootaxa 4624(1): 59-70. A few dwarf snakeheads that are known from the aquarium trade remain undescribed, including:SeriouslyFish: Channa sp. 'fire and ice'. Retrieved 12 February 2019.Four new species of snakehead are described from Myanmar by 2024:
Channa sp. Laos fireback. Channa sp. mulberry or Channa sp. morus.
Besides their commonality of being of small size, dwarf snakeheads generally are paternal mouthbrooders (confirmed in some species, suspected in others). An exception is the free-spawning C. bleheri where the eggs float to the surface and the parents take care of them (no mouthbrooding).SeriouslyFish: Channa bleheri. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
Although several dwarf snakeheads are very close relatives, overall the group is not monophyletic. For example, the dwarfs C. burmanica and C. stewartii are phylogenetically much closer to the large C. barca (up to ) than they are to the dwarfs C. ornatipinnis, C. pulchra and C. stiktos.Conte-Grand, C., Britz, R., Dahanukar, N., Raghavan, R., Pethi-yagoda, R., Tan, H.H., Hadiaty, R.K., Yaakob, N.S. & Rüber, L. (2017). Barcoding snakeheads (Teleostei, Channidae) re-visited: Discovering greater species diversity and resolving perpetuated taxonomic confusions. PLoS ONE, 12 (9): e0184017.
References
External links Comprehensive information on snakeheads at snakeheads.org