Somphongs' Rasbora (Trigonostigma somphongsi, formerly Rasbora
somphongsi) was described in 1958 by Hermann Meinken on the basis of
specimens collected at the end of 1957 and imported from Thailand for the
ornamental-fish trade. It appears to have been imported simultaneously by J.
van Hengel (Aquarium Westhandel, Amsterdam) and A. Werner in Munich. Both
importers sent specimens to Meinken with a request for identification. Even
then the precise collecting location was unclear, and this is reflected in the very
imprecise details given for the type locality (in the actual original description in
DATZ there are no details given at all, in the somewhat later, more precise
scientific description in Opuscula Zoologica it says "südliches Menam
(Thailand)" (= southern Menam (Thailand)).
he technically valid original
description is the first work (March
1958) published in DATZ, even though
Meinken didn't intend it that way; in the
past scientists fairly frequently published an
"interim paper" (or similar) somewhere or
other and the proper scientific description
followed later. For this reason original
descriptions that are technically valid from a
nomenclatural viewpoint are often not very
informative, and when researching you
have to go to the trouble of studying the
subsequent "proper" scientific work as well,
in order to obtain all the information that
the describer provided. In this case Meinken
was more concerned with aquarium
biology in the article in DATZ, while in
Opuscula Zoologica he concentrates more
on anatomical and phylogenetic characte -
ristics of the new rasbora.
Extinct!?
For around 20 years the species was
considered as good as extinct in the wild. In
the entry in the international Red List, the
reviewer (C. Vidthayanon, 2013) gives the
originally known distribution as the
drainage of the Mae Khlong near
Ratchaburi in central Thailand, where the
species was supposedly no longer found as
the result of extensive habitat destruction.
The only reason this dwarf rasbora was