The species was described in honor of J.M. Forget, friend of the describer.

It's type locality is the passage between the large- and the lesser Lake Titicaca, called the "Straits of Tiquina or Estrecho Tiquina".

It belongs to the Orestias cuvieri species group.

Members of this genus have been generally maintained and bred only under controlled laboratory conditions rather than as aquarium fishes. Therefore, information about maintainance and breeding is present here as part of the general information about the genus rather than under each individual species. This information is based mainly on that obtained in the laboratory of the zoological Institute and zoological Museum, Hamburg (Villwock, 1995b)

Keeping and breeding Orestias species in captivity requires that the water is relative cool with temperatures between 10 and 15 C. Optimal water temperatures would be about 13 C.

Today it is believed that the species from the genus Orestias reach sexual maturity when they still display juvenile coloration and morphology. At that stage it is very difficult to recognise the sexes.

Eggs are deposited one by one or in a small cluster in fine substrate like live plants with fine leaves. Development of the eggs takes about 4 weeks due to the low temperatures the eggs should be stored. Youngs grow slow and can be fed by artemia nauplii and small worms and crustaceans

Remarks :

Because this special treatment the genus Orestias is seldom found in the tanks of hobbyists.

Source:

R. Wildekamp, "A world of Killies" , Volume 4.

Max. size 8 cm.
Dorsal 13-16,
Anal 16-19,
LL scale count 29-39

Morales, P., Gajardo, F., Valdivieso, C. et al. Genomes of the Orestias pupfish from the Andean Altiplano shed light on their evolutionary history and phylogenetic relationships within Cyprinodontiformes. BMC Genomics 25, 614 (2024).

https://rdcu.be/dOnkA