Is this a Range extension paper?

[bekateen]

@Silurus or @Jools, Is this a legitimate range extension paper (vs. just a report of finding the fish within their known range)?

Also, I'm not familiar with this journal, and the website of the publication (which I have not typed here for potential security reasons) is blocked by my institution as being a site with malware. Also, I'm not greatly familiar with the geographic area, but I'm struggling to interpret the coordinates from the paper and square them with any waterways visible on Google Maps, and when I cross-locate with cities and other areas mentioned in the paper, they tend to move me to different areas.

Your thoughts?

Cheers, Eric

Pathak, S., Goswami, M. M., & Sarma, N. N. (2023). Occurrence of Glyptothorax striatus Mcclelland 1842, a sisorid catfish (Teleostei: Siluriformes) along with G. botius (Hamilton 1822) and G. telchitta (Hamilton 1822) from the Indo-Bhutan torrential hill streams of the Chirang District, Assam, India. Int J Recent Sci Res., 14(8): pp. 4084-4090.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijrsr.2023.1408.0775
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Se ... -STREA.pdf

ABSTRACT

Glyptothorax striatus

, recorded from the Kanamakra hill stream of the Chirang District is distinguished from its congeners having prominent plicae on ventral side of pectoral spine and first pelvic-fin ray with wedge shaped central depression in the adhesive apparatus vs. without a median depression in the adhesive apparatus in G. botius and G. telchitta, recorded from Aie tributary in the Chirang District. The upper surface of the body and sides of the head uniformly dark brown in G. striatus, but present a series of dark saddles on body in G. botius vs. absent in G. telchitta. G. botius differ from G. telchitta having rounded snout, broader fold of skin in thoracic adhesive apparatus vs. triangular snout with narrow folds of skin in thoracic adhesive apparatus.

[Silurus]

The fish (if correctly identified) is collected from a new locality within its known distribution, so it does not constitute a range extension. The authors also do not understand what a topotype is. A topotype would need to be collected from the type locality, but their collection locality is on the wrong side of the Brahmaputra.

[bekateen]

Hi HH,

Without wanting to trivialize the efforts of the authors, I did not think the paper amounted to much. And yes, I also noticed they were misusing the topotype concept. I just didn't want to start there in case there was any extension to range.

Much appreciated. Cheers,
Eric