Tlaloc labialis

English Name: 
Largelip Killifish
Mexican Name: 
Escamudo Bocón
Original Description: 

  GÜNTHER, A. (1866): Catalogue of the Physostomini. Catalogue of Fishes of the British Museum 6: pp 1-368

Etymology: 

  The upper lip of this species, "well developed, broad, extending to the angle of the mouth", inspired Günther for this species epithet. It is derived from the Latin word "labium", which means lip, composed with the adjectival derivational suffix -ālis. The name of the species can therefore be translated with "the Tlaloc with lips".

  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.