FEESH-WATER FISHES OF SUM, OR THAILAND 189 



The fish is caught in large quantities for domestic consumption and 

 sale and is well known to fishermen and the general public under the 

 name pla tapien khao {khao, white) . 



PUNTIUS ALTUS (Gunther) 



? Puntius (Burbodes) hocotirti Bleekee, 1865 (347), p. 35 (nomen nudum) 

 (Siam) ; 1865 (356), p. 176 (uomen nudum) (Siam). (Fide Sauvage.) 



Barhus alius Gunther, 1868, vol. 7, p. 119 (Siam).— Fowler, 1937, p. 198, figs. 163, 

 164, 167, 168 (Bangkok, Parkman, Kemarat). 



Barbus (Puntius) alius von Martens, 1876, p. 402 (Petchaburi). 



Puntius alius Sauvage, 1881, p. 163 (Menam Chao Phya). — Fowlek, 1939, p. 45 

 (Krabi). 



This species was established by Giinther from three specimens, 3 to 

 3.5 inches long, contained in the Thai collections of Mouhot and Jam- 

 rach in the British Museum, which institution has also numerous other 

 specimens from the Menam Chao Phya, received from the Siamese 

 Museum. 



With the exception of one specimen, 5.8 cm. long, listed by Fowler 

 from Kemarat on the Mekong in Eastern Thailand and two specimens 

 in the British Museum collected by Bock and assigned to "Western 

 Siam," the species has been known only from Central Thailand. Fow- 

 ler (1939), however, recorded from Krabi in the Peninsula a number 

 of full-sized specimens that differ from any previously observed in 

 having a dark longitudinal band on each caudal lobe. 



A specimen from Bangkok figured by Fowler is 15 cm. long. 



The characters that distinguish this species are the deep body (equal 

 to about half the standard length), two pairs of barbels equal to or 

 shorter than eye, short and obtuse snout shorter than eye, 8 rows of 

 scales between the origin of the dorsal fin and the lateral line, well- 

 developed scaly sheaths of the dorsal and anal fins, origin of the dorsal 

 fin posterior to a vertical from the origin of the ventrals, strongly 

 ossified last simple dorsal ray with 8 to 12 antrorse serrae, deeply 

 forked caudal fin, and plain coloration, with the anterior distal part 

 of the dorsal fin blackish. 



Bleeker, in 1865 [347], in a mere list of names of fishes collected in 

 Thailand by Bocourt, gave Puntius {Barhodes) hocourti, new species. 

 No description was ever published. In another list of Thai fishes issued 

 in the same year, Bleeker simply recorded the species as Pv/ntius 

 {Barhodes) hocourti Bleeker. While the fish in question doubtless 

 represented an undescribed species, the name given to it by Bleeker 

 had no standing, and the only clue to the identity of the fish is afforded 

 by Sauvage (1881) who, in a list of fishes found in Indo-China, 

 Thailand, and the East Indies, indicated in a footnote to Puntius altus 

 that Puntius hocourti was the same fish. 



