Moderator's note: This publication is the follow up to the thesis work previously reported here: Diversity of Trichomycterus in the Rio Doce basin
Reis, V. J. C., Dos Santos, S. A., Britto, M. R., Volpi, A. T., & de Pinna, M. C. C. (2020). Iterative taxonomy reveals a new species of Trichomycterus Valenciennes 1832 (Siluriformes, Trichomycteridae) widespread in Rio Doce basin: a pseudocryptic of T. immaculatus. Journal of Fish Biology. 11 August 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.14490.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... /jfb.14490
Abstract
This paper reports on a new species of from the Rio Doce basin. Unusually for new taxa in the genus during the past few decades, the new species is not narrowly endemic but instead widely distributed in its major drainage, the Rio Doce. The species has been collected and deposited in scientific collections for some years, but has been systematically misidentified as the more abundant T. immaculatus or, to a lesser degree, as other morphologically similar species from Southeastern Brazil such as T. nigricans and T. pradensis. A combination of several morphological characteristics such as vertebral number, pectoral‐fin ray counts, pigmentation pattern, and barcoding distance were iteratively used and unambiguously distinguish the new species from all congeners, a set of evidence corroborated by barcoding distances. The present case fits a pattern of diversity‐discovery in which rare and narrowly endemic morphologically conspicuous species are discovered and described before visually inconspicuous taxa, even when the latter are more abundant and widespread. The morphological similarities among Southeastern Brazilian species with a uniform dark‐grey color serves as basis for a brief discussion about the concepts of cryptic and pseudo‐cryptic species in Trichomycterus and their consequences for potentially hidden diversity in the genus.
- Key words: Catfish, Trichomycterinae, cryptic species, color pattern, barcoding, Neotropical