Maurice Kottelat

Dr. Maurice Kottelat (* 195?) is a Swiss ichthyologist best known for his taxonomic work on European fresh water fish species and his discoveries of Indonesian fish species, including some of the smallest fish species in the world.

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In 1976 he entered the University of Neuchâtel where he obtained his diploma in 1987. In 1980 he went to Thailand where he began his field research on Southeast Asiatic and Indonesian fresh water fish species. In 1997 he wrote an important revision on the genus Coregonus, which include the fish species from Lake Geneva, Lake Constance and other lakes in Switzerland. Together with Dr. Tan Heok Hui, curator of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research in Singapore, he worked on Sumatra, where they discovered Paedocypris progenetica, which is considered as smallest vertebrate in the world. In general he described more than 350 fish taxa. Species named after Kottelat are: Monodactylus kottelati, Neogastromyzon kottelati, Rasbora kottelati, and Tondanichthys kottelati.

On November 4, 2006 he obtained the Honorary degree during a Dies academicus celebration at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

Kottelat is the former president of the European Ichthyological Society. He lives currently in Cornol, in the Canton of Jura in Switzerland.

Works (selected)

• 1990 Maurice Kottelat: Indochinese Nemacheilines, a revision of nemacheiline loaches (Pisces: Cypriniformes) of Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and southern Viet Nam. 180 text-figures. 8vo, pp. 262
• 1996 Maurice Kottelat: Freshwater Biodiversity in Asia: With Special Reference to Fish
• 1997 Maurice Kottelat: European Freshwater fishes. An heuristic checklist of the freshwater fishes of Europe (exclusive of former USSR), with an introduction for non-systematists and comments on nomenclature and conservation. Biologia (Bratislava) Sect. Zool., 52 (Suppl.):271 pp
• 1997 Maurice Kottelat: Freshwater Fishes of Western Indonesia and Sulawesi
• 1998 Maurice Kottelat: Fishes of Brazil - An Aid to the Study of Spix and Agassiz's (1829-31) Selecta Genera et Species Piscium Brasiliensium Including an English Translation of the Entire Text by V.L. Wirasinha and Reproduction of all Illustrations
• 2001 Maurice Kottelat: Fishes of Laos
• 2001 Maurice Kottelat: Freshwater fishes of Northern Vietnam: A preliminary check-list of the fishes known or expected to occur in Northern Vietnam : with comments on systematics and nomenclature
• 2007 Maurice Kottelat & Jörg Freyhof: Handbook of European Freshwater Fishes Published by the authors. ISBN 978-2-8399-0298-4