Ambat Gopalan Kutty Menon

Ambat Gopalan Kutty Menon, often written as A. G. K. Menon, (19 April 1921 – 11 April 2002), was an Indian ichthyologist and university professor.

Biography

A. G. K. Menon grew up in Coonoor, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where his father worked as a physician at the Pasteur Institute. He attended a British high school in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. He subsequently studied zoology at Madura College in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, one of the oldest institutions of higher education in British India. He then undertook postgraduate studies at Presidency College of the University of Madras in Chennai, completing his PhD in 1952 under the supervision of Sunder Lal Hora. A few years later he obtained the DSc degree. In 1953, Menon married a granddaughter of the last Maharaja of the princely state of Cochin.

Under the guidance of Sunder Lal Hora, Menon became deeply involved during his studies and in the following years with the Satpura hypothesis developed by Hora. According to the hypothesis, the Satpura Range of central India served as a bridge through which fauna of the Malay Peninsula dispersed onto the Indian subcontinent and into the Western Ghats. As evidence for the hypothesis, Hora and Menon cited similarities such as the development of organs for attachment to rocks in fast-flowing waters, which are now recognized as examples of convergent evolution.

Taxa described

The following are selected species described by Menon, alone or with co-authors:

Garra ethelwynnae Menon, 1958 Gonorhynchus periyarensis (Menon & Jacob, 1996) Sahyadria chalakkudiensis (Menon, Rema Devi & Thobias, 1999) Schizothorax kumaonensis Menon, 1971

Selected publications

Menon, A. G. K. (1951). "Distribution of Clariid Fishes, and Its Significance in Zoogeographical Studies". Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy. 17(4): 291–299. Menon, A. G. K. (1964). Monograph of the cyprinid fishes of the genus Garra Hamilton. Memoirs of the Indian Museum, 14(4): 173–260. Menon, A. G. K. (1974). A Check-list of Fishes of the Himalayan and the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Barrackpore: Inland Fisheries Society of India, Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute. Menon, A. G. K. (1977). A Systematic Monograph of the Tongue Soles of the Genus Cynoglossus Hamilton-Buchanan (Pisces, Cynoglossidae). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, no. 238. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Menon, A. G. K. (1987). Fauna of India. Pisces. Vol. IV. Teleostei – Cobitoidea. Part 1. Homalopteridae. Calcutta: Zoological Survey of India. Menon, A. G. K. (1992). Fauna of India. Pisces. Vol. IV. Teleostei – Cobitoidea. Part 2. Cobitidae. Calcutta: Zoological Survey of India. Menon, A. G. K. (1999). Check List – Fresh Water Fishes of India. Calcutta: Zoological Survey of India. ISBN 81-85874-15-8. Menon, A. G. K. (2004). Threatened Fishes of India and Their Conservation. Kolkata: Zoological Survey of India. ISBN 8-18171-023-1.