Sunder Lal Hora

"Sunder Lal Hora" (1896 - December 8, 1955) was an Indian ichthyologist.

Famous for the "Satpura Hypothesis", a zoo-geographical hypothesis proposed by him that suggests that the central Indian Satpura Range of hills acted as a bridge providing for the Malayan affinity of many Indian fauna and flora in the peninsula and the Western Ghats of India. He used the adaptations of torrent fishes to support this biogeographical hypothesis, however new research suggests that the examples he used were a case of convergent evolution. [Karanth, Praveen. 2003. Evolution of disjunct distributions among wet-zone species of the Indian subcontinent: Testing various hypotheses using a phylogenetic approach. Current Science 85(9):1276-1282 [http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/nov102003/1276.pdf PDF] ]

A genus of ricefish, "Horaichthys" ("Hora's Fish"), the sole member of the family "Horaichthyidae" are named after him.

Notes

References

* Hora, S. L. 1944. On the Malayan affinities of the freshwater fish fauna of Peninsular India, and its bearing on the probable age of the Garo-Rajmahal Gap. Proc. Nat. Inst. Sci. India, 10(2):423-439.
* Hora, S. L. 1949. Satpura Hypothesis of the Distribution of the Malayan Fauna and Flora to Peninsular India. Proc. Nat. Inst. Sci. India, 15(8):309-314.

External links

* http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/aug102001/240.pdf