Editing Nothobranchius (section)

{{Short description|Genus of fishes}}
{{Automatic taxobox
| image = Nothobranchius rachovii male 450px.jpg
| image_caption = ''[[Nothobranchius rachovii]]''
| taxon = Nothobranchius
| authority = [[Wilhelm Peters|Peters]], 1868
| type_species = ''Cyprinodon orthonotus''
| type_species_authority = ([[Wilhelm Peters|Peters]], 1844)
| synonyms =
''Adiniops'' <small>[[George Sprague Myers|Myers]], 1924</small><br />
''Fundulosoma'' <small>[[Ernst Ahl|Ahl]], 1924</small><br />
''Zononothobranchius'' <small>[[Alfred C. Radda|Radda]], 1969</small><br />
''Aphyobranchius'' <small>[[Rudolf Hans Wildekamp|Wildekamp]], 1977</small><br />
''Paranothobranchius'' <small>[[Lothar Seegers|Seegers]], 1985</small>
}}
 
'''''Nothobranchius''''' is a [[genus]] of small, freshwater [[killifish]], classified in the family [[Nothobranchiidae]]<ref name=fishbase/><ref name=Laan2014>van der Laan, R., Eschmeyer, W.N. & Fricke, R. (2014): [http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2014/f/zt03882p230.pdf Family-group names of Recent fishes.] ''Zootaxa, 3882 (2): 1–230.''</ref> in the order [[Cyprinodontiformes]]. There are about a hundred species in the genus, many with very small distributions.<ref name=fishbase>{{FishBase_genus | genus = Nothobranchius | month = September | year = 2018 }}</ref> They are primarily native to [[East Africa]] from [[Sudan]] to northern [[South Africa]], whereas a dozen species are found in the upper [[Congo River Basin]]; the greatest [[species richness]] is in [[Tanzania]].

''Nothobranchius'' typically inhabit ephemeral pools that are filled only during the monsoon season, and show extreme life-history adaptations to survive the dry season. When their habitats dry up, the adult fish die and the eggs survive encased in the clay during the dry season. The embryos survive the dry season by entering [[diapause]], facilitated by their specialized eggs that have a very hard chorion and are resistant to desiccation and hypoxia.<ref name=BMC>Alexander Dorn, Zuzana Musilová, Matthias Platzer, Kathrin Reichwald and Alessandro Celler (2014) [http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-014-0210-3 The strange case of East African annual fishes: aridification correlates with diversification for a savannah aquatic group?] ''BMC Evolutionary Biology'' 14:210. DOI: 10.1186/s12862-014-0210-3</ref> These species reach maturity very quickly once diapause is broken and have a very short [[Life expectancy|life span]]; one species, ''[[Nothobranchius furzeri]]'', reaches maturity in 17 days and seldom lives beyond 6 months.<ref name=BMC/>