Original description as Characodon garmani:
ZooBank:697F54FE-7BB3-4181-AEF2-85643AD3C273.
- Jordan, David Starr & Barton Warren Evermann. 1898. "The fishes of North and Middle America: A descriptive catalogue of the species of fishes and fish-like vertebrates found in the waters of North America, north of the Isthmus of Panama. Part III". United States National Museum Bulletin. 47:2183-3136 (ffm01817)
Conservation: Characodon garmani is evaluated by the international union for the conservation of nature in the iucn red list of threatened species as (EX) extinct (1996). The species is extinct (Miller et al., 1990), no collections have been reported after the original collection by Edward Palmer, and just the preserved female is what we know of it. My own two visits to this valley, the last on March 3, 2006, produced no results. Characodon garmani was reported extinct in 1900 by Burkhead (2012)
The Parras valley has been an industrial area for several centuries, and aquatic habitats have been modified and severely polluted by industrial and home sewage. Several of the natural springs no longer exist. And just one remains, which empties its flow into a large concrete reservoir where exotic species have been introduced. The water is then used for domestic and industrial ends.
The valley of Parras contained several very distinctive species, among them the monotypic molluscivorus cyprinid Stypodon signifer and the pupfish Cyprinodon latifasciatus, both also extinct now.
Characodon require a very specific habitat, and if they don't have it they just can not adapt to different conditions. The exit of the main spring, a stream coming out of a cave has been modified into a channel. If Characodon garmani would have inhabited there before this happened, it would have almost certainly disappeared from there after it was constructed.