Allotoca meeki

Allotoca meeki, commonly known as the Zirahuen allotoca or the tiro de Zirahuén, is a species of fish endemic to Lake Zirahuén, a small endorheic mountain lake in Michoacán state of central Mexico.^[2]

Allotoca meeki
Conservation status
Critically Endangered  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Cyprinodontiformes
Family:	Goodeidae
Genus:	Allotoca
Species:	A. meeki
Binomial name
Allotoca meeki (Álvarez, 1959)
Synonyms[2]
Neoophorus meeki Álvarez, 1959

The specific name honours the American ichthyologist Seth Eugene Meek (1859-1914) who wrote the first review of the fishes of Mexico.^[3]

Conservation

The Zirahuén allotoca is critically endangered. The species has a small range, limited to a single lake basin. Two non-native predatory species of bass (Micropterus salmoides and M. punctulatus) were introduced to Lake Zirahuén in 1933, and by the 1990s the allotoca had been extirpated from the lake.^[1]

A population survived in the Estanque de Condempas in Opopeo, a small lake on the Río El Silencio tributary of Lake Zirahuén. Bass invaded the estanque in the 2000s, and by 2011 no allotocas could be found there. As of 2017 a few allotocas have survived in an outlet of the lake, and in a nearby spring-fed pond where bass are also found.^[1]