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The  Northern Ohio Killifish Association

Club Magazine Jan-08  Edition

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Purpose:...Getting the disclaimer out of the way: what follows is an overview using less than accurate generalizations. while many "purist" and hobbyist may object to the generalizations or categorizing using blanket statements packaged as facts, this introductions purpose is not meant to offer a bottom line "manual" on killifishes, but instead omits some factual detail for brevity and clarity...

and now to the mundane scientific stuff... placing the killifish into the "Big Picture" of Mother Natures scheme of things; we have the below phylogenic chart:

Many hobbyist would expand this list to include the Oryziatidae (ricefish) as well.

These 4 or 5 families of fish are dispersed amongst 5 of 7 continents, and in diversified habitats ranging from high mountain lakes, hot desert pools, large fresh water lakes, small temporary pools, jungle rivers, temperate forest steams, and even rotting trunks on dry land. They represent some of the most colorful freshwater fish species that can be amazingly hardy or extremely delicate and demanding.

So what can we make of all this? Well it depends on whether you are a scientist/teacher/student OR just a hobbyist with just a passing interest in the phylogenic relationship, ecology and biology amongst the assorted fishes present in the hobby. With regard to the killifishes, a hobbyist could attempt to lump the killifishes along family lines, but how organizing the entire lot into family groups translates into useful hobby terms, is doubtful. A single killifish family may span thousands of square miles across a diversity of habitats; which in turn often yields broad adaptive variance within one family.

Unlike individual species, habitats are somewhat latitude dependant and often repeat across continents and impassible barriers like oceans. So even if distance separates the assorted families of killifishes, it is possible to find similar appearing/behaving species across family lines and thousands of miles apart (this affect is know as convergent evolution). For example the New world genus Fundulus superficially parallels the Asian & African panchaxes, and the South American Simpsonicthys roughly parallels the East African nothobranchius in biological respects. Likewise the West African Aphyosemions have many similar appearing counterparts in the genus Rivulus from South America. The below table illustrates some species characteristics affected by environmental variables:

So rather than stress over phylogenic relationships, a higher priority for the hobbyist is how to care for the fish and how to breed it  That said; a more practical application for the hobbyist to organize killifishes would be to group killifishes along reproductive habits, origins, social (schooling habits) and generalized biotope type (the red text in the above table represents the pertinent variables that can at least for hobby purposes, divide killifish species at the genus level). Using those constraints as divisions, the following table probably has more relevance for the hobbyist:

Continued