Danio vs Brachydanio

[Maxwell Palmer]

Dear Pat

I have been working on the rather confused taxonomy of these fish for about 
six years and it is confused. The main problem is that Brachydanio was never 
actually raised to generic status under the rules. George Meyers said that 
he did but this was never accepted by taxonomists except in th4e aquarium 
literature (Meyers was a good friend of Innes who was the publisher of 
Exotic Aquarium fishes and later became the editor. His belief that 
Brachydanio had generic status was based on erroneous data regarding the 
nominal genus based on Danio malabaricus, which is niether a Danio or, 
Brachydanio.

I have been preparing a revision of this group and if you would be 
interested I could send you a chapter on the taxonomy of Danio by next 
Friday. I wish you had given more notice. 

I would point out that Jayaram, Barman, Brittain and Kottelot do not 
recognize Brachydanio as a genus. Eshmeyer lists it as valid citing Hora, 
Meyers and Kottelat but the Hora reference is very ambiguous and Kottelat 
has since changed his mind.
I would very strongly suggest that you do not base your taxonomy on Axelrod. 
Despite his many good qualities his taxonomy is sloppy.

Maxwell R. Palmer
Biology Dept
C/O Dr. B. J. Turner
or E mail < maxwell at vt.edu> or
540/951/4593 voice or fax
Viriginia Polytech
Blacksburg, Va
24061