Pituna is a genus of small, short-lived killifish endemic to Brazil, part of the seasonal (annual) killifish group that lives in temporary pools and marshy depressions across the country's savanna interior. The atlas's four species are tiny, with adults reaching only about 1–2 in. Like other annual killifish, Pituna species are built for a boom-and-bust life cycle: eggs are buried in the mud at the bottom of a pool and enter a dormant period, or diapause, that lets them survive the pool drying out completely, hatching only once the rains return and refill the habitat.
Pituna is essentially unknown outside specialist killifish circles; none of its four species — P. compacta, P. poranga, P. schindleri, and P. xinguensis — carries a widely used common name in the atlas's records. Keepers who do maintain annual killifish generally replicate the wild boom-and-bust cycle in miniature, incubating eggs in damp peat through a dry period before hatching them in fresh water, but species-specific husbandry notes for this genus are sparse. Conservation status is not a major concern at genus level, with three of the four species rated Least Concern and one Near Threatened, though as with all pool-dependent annual killifish, the habitats themselves are vulnerable to drainage and land conversion.