SHILLONG, Dec 26: A new species of Channa, commonly known as snakehead, has been named after a Shillong-based freshwater enthusiast, Aristone M Ryndongsngi, who happens to be its discoverer.
Aristone, a former MMA fighter and an alumnus of St Anthony’s College, was in 2017 trying to cast about for Channa pardalis, another snakehead species which was discovered in West Khasi Hills in 2016. It was during this expedition, Aristone stumbled upon the new species; mistaking it for Channa pardalis, he decided to collect the unknown species.
It was after this, Aristone started noticing some peculiarity in its morphological characters, and his sceptical self bludgeoned him into forwarding its photos to Dr J Praveenraj, an expert in Indian snakehead fishes for verification.
Praveenraj is from the Indian Council of Agricultural Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair, and has been working on Indian snakehead fishes since 2015.
“J Praveenraj confirmed it to be new and asked for specimens for official description. He wanted to have a very good natural photo of the fish in live condition; so, he conducted a field trip in November 2019, and collected the live specimens for study. He did DNA work and prepared the manuscript and it all took an entire year for the official description. Praveenraj and his team named the species after me in Latin, Channa aristonei,” said an elated Ryndongsngi.
With regard to the feather in his cap, Aristone said, “It gives me immense pleasure to have a species named after me and this is a lifetime achievement for me. I also feel extremely overjoyed to have a beautiful snakehead on my name. Right from my childhood, I always dreamt of having any discovery to be honored on my name”.
A scientific paper describing the species, ‘A New Species of Snakehead (Teleostei: Channidae) from East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, Northeastern India’, has been published in Copeia, the official journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.
Meanwhile, Dr Praveenraj said that the move to name the new species after the discoverer was to honour him. “We predicted it (unknown species of snakehead) to be new and conducted field trips in East Khasi Hills of Meghalaya to get the sample for official description. We collected the samples and conducted morphological and DNA studies and found it to be a species new to science. To honour the discoverer and his immense support during our field trip, we named the species Channa aristonei,” Dr Praveenraj said.
Known as Dohthili in Khasi, snakeheads are small sized to large-bodied fishes of size ranging from 10-180 cm length, belonging to the fish family, Channidae.
They have a head shape that resembles a snake and have specialised air-breathing organs in their gills, which enable them to inhale oxygen. In India, a total of 27 snakehead species are found, of which 20 species are found in the North East, the rest being found in Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats, Central India and Sri Lanka.
“The family Channidae is represented by 53 species in three genera, Channa with 48 valid species distributed from the Middle East to South-East and Far-East Asia. The discovery of Aristonei increases the number of species of Channa to 49, which currently comprises 19 endemic species from the Eastern Himalayan region,” a statement said on Saturday.