Tlaloc candalarius

English Name: 
Headwater Killifish
Mexican Name: 
Escamudo de Candelaria
Original Description: 

  HUBBS, C. L. (1924): Studies of the fishes of the order Cyprinodontes. Miscellaneous Publications of the Museum of Zoology University of Michigan(13): pp 1-31

Etymology: 

  The species was named by Hubbs after the town Candalaria (now: Candelaria), federal state of Campeche, that is located close to the borders to the federal state of Tabasco and Guatemala. The name can be translated with "the Tlaloc of Candeleria". 

  The genus Tlaloc was erected by José Álvarez del Villar and Jorge Carranza Fraser in 1951 for 14 specimens of Cyprindont fish from Chiapas, collected by the US American zoologist Clarence James Goodnight. The name refers to the Aztek divinity Tláloc, who was in the Aztek mythology the deity for rain, fertility and water. Why they had chosen the Aztec god Tláloc instead of Chaac, the Mayan god for rain, thunder and lightning, who was worshipped by the Mayan people in Chiapas, where the types were collected, is unkown.