Titicaca Orestias

Titicaca Orestias
Titicaca Orestias
Lake Titicaca Orestias
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cyprinodontiformes
Family: Cyprinodontidae
Genus: Orestias
Species: O. cuvieri
Binomial name
Orestias cuvieri
Valenciennes, 1846

The Titicaca Orestias (Orestias cuvieri), also known by its native name Amanto, is an extinct freshwater killifish from the genus Orestias, a group of fish which is endemic to the Lake Titicaca and other Altiplano lakes in the Andes. With a body length of 22 cm it was the largest member within that genus.

Its mouth was nearly turned upwards and therefore the flat head had a dished shape. The head took nearly one third of the entire body length. The upperside was greenish-yellow to umber. The lower jaw was black. They had scales which were oddly light coloured at their centre. The scales of the young were blotched.

The Titica Orestias became extinct due the competition of introduced trouts like the Lake trout, Brown trout, or the Rainbow trout as well as silversides (Atherinidae) from the 1930s to the 1950s. A survey in 1962 failed to find any fish.


References

  • Day, D., 1981, The Doomsday Book of Animals, Ebury Press, London.
  • Harrison, I.J. and Stiassny, M.L.J. 1999. The Quiet Crisis. A preliminary listing of the freshwater fishes of the world that are Extinct or “Missing in Action". In: R.D.E. MacPhee (ed.) Extinctions in Near Time, pp. 271-331. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
  • Huber, J.H., 1996. Killi-Data 1996. Updated checklist of taxonomic names, collecting localities and bibliographic references of oviparous Cyprinodont fishes (Atherinomorpha, Pisces).. Société Française d'Ichtyologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France, 399 p.
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