Dario tigris · Black Tiger Dario

Overview

The barred Myanmar badid Dario tigris circulated under names including Myanmar, Pyjamas, and Black Tiger before its formal description in 2022. Formerly treated as a color form of Dario hysginon, it grows larger and differs in females and anatomical characters as well.

Distribution & habitat

It is restricted to Kachin State in northern Myanmar. The type locality is a mountain stream south of Mogaung in the Ayeyarwady basin. Two males included in an earlier series of the similar species came from separate sites near Myitkyina, including a stream and a ditch beside fish ponds.

Detailed habitat information remains uncertain. The similar species favors densely vegetated still pools, but that comparison should not be treated as a complete habitat description here.

Aquarium setup

Use soft substrate or fine gravel with ample retreats. Cryptocoryne, attached Microsorum, Anubias, and Taxiphyllum are suitable. Moss provides spawning surfaces, while branches, floating plants, and leaves subdivide the layout.

A pair or one male with several females can start in a 45 cm tank. Multiple males need more space and visual barriers. Spread caves and potential spawning areas apart. Maintain soft water despite the neutral-to-alkaline pH preference; higher pH does not mean high hardness is required.

Diet & feeding

The genus takes small aquatic crustaceans, worms, insect larvae, and zooplankton. Offer minute live or frozen foods such as Artemia nauplii, small Daphnia, microworms, and banana worms.

Ensure these slow feeders actually receive food before companions consume it. Bloodworms and Tubifex are associated with obesity and health problems and are best excluded.

Behaviour & compatibility

A dedicated aquarium is preferable. This is not a shoaling fish; use a pair or a single male with several females in limited quarters. Rival males can fight intensely, requiring individual territories and cover when kept together.

If companions are added, choose peaceful small upper-water fishes or suitable miniature loaches. Avoid large, busy, or strongly competitive feeders. A retiring manner is not evidence that long-term exposure to dominant tankmates is suitable.

Sexual dimorphism

Adult males are brighter and develop extended pelvic, dorsal, and anal fins. Females are smaller and rounder and can also be distinguished from females of the similar species. Do not assemble pairs by a broad trade name alone.

Breeding

It forms temporary pairs and spawns on solid surfaces. Condition adults with live and frozen foods and provide separate male territories. Exclude other species for fry production; with several males, a dominant individual usually gains most opportunities.

Courtship can continue for days, with stronger colors and alternating invitations and rejection of females. Egg laying itself is brief, depositing eggs beneath leaves or other hard surfaces. The female is then excluded while the male retains the territory. Moving egg-bearing material into spawning-tank water, or removing adults, reduces the risk of fry being eaten after hatching.

Eggs hatch in roughly two to three days. Yolk absorption may take another week. Begin with infusoria-sized foods and add microworms and Artemia nauplii only as the young become large enough.

Notes

The fish entered the hobby in 2005. Its early treatment as a form of Dario hysginon is part of its naming history. Formal separation used color pattern, dorsal spines, and vertebral counts; aquarium observations also found differences in size and females and no hybridization. Failure to hybridize does not by itself establish that mixed housing is the best arrangement.