Charax awa sp. n. is herein described from the Rio Mearim, Rio Munim and Rio Turiaçu basins, three coastal river basins of northeastern Brazil located between the Rios Gurupi and Parnaíba basins. These have a complex and still poorly known biogeographic history. This region is ecologically extremely relevant since it comprises three of the main Brazilian biomes, as well as, transition zones between them: Amazônia, Brazilian Cerrado and Caatinga. Therefore, this area has faunal and floristic representatives of these three biomes, which makes it particularly relevant in terms of ecology, biodiversity and conservation. Charax awa sp. n. possesses a relatively small orbital diameter (22.1-28.5 % HL), what distinguishes it from most of its congeners, except from C. notulatus and C. caudimaculatus. It differs from C. caudimaculatus by a longer snout, and from C. notulatus by the number of scales around the caudal peduncle, as well as by the number of vertebrae. The new species herein described differs from its geographically closely distributed congeners, C. leticiae, C. niger, and C. pauciradiatus mainly by the relative horizontal orbital diameter. It is a "small-eyed" species. In addition, C. awa sp. n. can be distinguished from C. leticiae by having a maxilla extending to the vertical line posterior to the pupil, near the posterior orbital margin and by having a lower humeral spot distance. It can be distinguished from C. pauciradiatus by more scale rows from the pelvic-fin origin to the lateral line and more scale rows from the dorsal-fin origin to the lateral line and it differs from C. niger by having more transverse scale rows in space from the humeral spot to the supracleithrum. In addition, it differs from C. pauciradiatus and C. niger by the absence of bony hooks on anal and pelvic-fins rays of adult males.

A new species of Hyphessobrycon is described for the upper Munim and Preguiças river basins, northeastern Brazil, supported by morphological and molecular species delimitation methods. This new species belongs to the Hyphessobrycon sensu stricto group, as it has the three main diagnostic character states of this assemblage: presence of a dark brown or black blotch on the dorsal fin, absence of a black midlateral stripe on its flank and the position of Weberian apparatus upward horizontal through dorsal margin of operculum. Our phylogenetic analysis also supported the allocation of the new species in this group; however, it was not possible to recover the species sister-group. Pristella maxillaris and Moenkhausia hemigrammoides were recovered as the sister-clade of the Hyphessobrycon sensu stricto group.

Hyphessobryconcarusp. nov. is described based on five different and independent methods of species delimitation, making the hypothesis of this new species supported by an integrative taxonomy perspective. This new species has a restricted distribution, occurring just in the upper Pindaré river drainage, Mearim river basin, Brazil. It is a member of the rosy tetra clade, which is characterized mainly by the presence of a dark brown or black blotch on dorsal fin and absence of a midlateral stripe on the body. Hyphessobryconcarusp. nov. is distinguished from the members of this clade mainly by the shape of its humeral spot, possessing few irregular inconspicuous vertically arranged chromatophores in the humeral region, or sometimes a very thin and inconspicuous humeral spot, and other characters related to teeth count, and color pattern. The phylogenetic position of the new species within the rosy tetra clade was based on molecular phylogenetic analysis using sequences of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase subunit 1. In addition, a new clade (here termed Hyphessobryconmicropterus clade) within the rosy tetra clade is proposed based on molecular data, comprising H.carusp. nov., H.micropterus, H.piorskii, and H.simulatus, and with H.carusp. nov. and H.piorskii recovered as sister species. Our results suggest cryptic speciation in the rosy tetra clade and, more specifically, in the H.micropterus clade. We recommend the use of integrative taxonomy for future taxonomic revisions and species descriptions when dealing with species complexes and groups containing possible cryptic species.

We present here an embracing freshwater fish inventory of the Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses and adjacent areas, reporting 49 fish species, 33 of which were identified accurately at the species level, representing ten orders and 25 fish families that range from obligate freshwater to estuarine organisms. This number of species is much larger than two previous studies for the park, each reporting just 12 and 33 fishes occurring on freshwater environments. Among the 49 freshwater species recorded in this study, 14 are new records for the Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses, and just one corresponds to an introduced species. Some of the 14 new records in the Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses, cited above, as well as some of the 16 species which we are not able to identify accurately at the species level, could include undescribed species, but more study is necessary before sorting out which species are truly undescribed, and which are already described ones. The orders reported by this survey which comprise the highest percentage of species richness, excluding introduced species, were: Characiformes, Cichliformes and Siluriformes, in the same ranking position, and Gymnotiformes, as expected for Neotropical freshwater surveys. The families with the highest number of species, excluding non-native species, were: Characidae, followed by Cichlidae, and Loricariidae. Out of the 33 species herein identified accurately at the species level, five of them are species typically found in brackish water environments, and when occurring on freshwater environments, are restricted mainly to estuaries, or, occasionally, the lower portions of the rivers. Thus, we will not address them in our biogeographical comments. From the remaining 28 species, eight did not occur in the Amazon River basin, six of them being endemic to the Maranhão-Piauí ecoregion. The remaining species herein reported also have their distribution recorded for the Amazon River basin, which shows the great influence of the Amazon basin. In the last two decades efforts to inventory the freshwater fish fauna and to taxonomically solve some groups occurring on the Maranhão state have been made. However the knowledge regarding the composition of the Maranhão freshwater fishes is still insufficient and underestimated, with several groups still lacking adequate taxonomic and systematic resolution, and with many gaps of knowledge, something that is not appropriate for our current picture of "biodiversity crisis". As well as, the other Brazilian protected areas, the PNLM fails to preserve its freshwater environment properly, since it includes only fragments of the major river systems of the area, not including and conserving the hole river drainages, mainly excluding their headwaters. Thus, its water bodies are exposed to typical human impacts.

In the present work, we conducted an extensive long-lasting inventory of the fishes, using different collection methodologies, covering almost the entire Pindaré River drainage, one of the principal tributaries of the Mearim River basin, an area included in the Amazônia Legal region, northeastern Brazil. We reported 101 species, just three of them being non-native, demonstrating that the composition of this studied fish community is majority composed of native species. We found a predominance of species of the orders Characiformes and Siluriformes, corroborating the pattern usually found for the Neotropical fish fauna. Similar to other studies, this inventory was mainly dominated by small characids, representing 21% of the species herein recorded. When comparing the present survey with other species lists published for this region (including the States of Maranhão and Piaui), we can conclude that the freshwater fish fauna of the State of Maranhão is probably still underestimated. We reported 41 more species, and one more species than Soares (2005, 2013) and Abreu et al. (2019) recorded for the entire Mearim River basin, respectively. We believe, however, that the number of species presented by Abreu et al. (2019) is overestimated. We compared our results with all other freshwater fish species inventories performed for the hydrological units Maranhão and Parnaíba sensu Hubbert & Renno (2006). With these comparisons, we concluded that our results evidenced that a high effort was put in the inventory here presented. The two works including more species recorded from coastal river basins of the hydrological units Maranhão and Parnaíba were the works published by Ramos et al. (2014) for the Parnaíba River basin, one of the main and larger river basin of Brazil, and the compiled data published by Castro & Dourado (2011) for the Mearim, Pindaré, Pericumã, and upper Turiaçu River drainages, including 146 and 109 species, respectively. Our survey recorded only 45 less species than Ramos et al. (2014), and eight less species than Castro & Dourado (2011). However, it is essential to emphasize that the number of species presented by Castro & Dourado (2011) is probably overestimated since they did not update and check the taxonomic status of the species of their compiled data. In several cases, they considered more than one name for the same species.

The obscure taxonomic histories of three species of Aphyocharax (A. alburnus, A. avary and A. pusillus) are revised, based on both morphological and literature data. Aphyocharax avary is resurrected as a valid species and removed from synonymy with A. alburnus. Based on examinations of type specimens, A. alburnus is considered a junior synonym of A. pusillus.

Two new species, Hyphessobrycon frickei Guimarães, Brito, Bragança, Katz & Ottoni sp. nov. and H. geryi Guimarães, Brito, Bragança, Katz & Ottoni sp. nov., are herein described, based on seven different and independent species delimitation methods, and on molecular and morphological characters, making the hypothesis of these new species supported from an integrative taxonomy perspective. They belong to the “Rosy tetra” clade, which is mainly characterized by the presence of a dark brown or black blotch on the dorsal fin and the absence of a midlateral stripe on the body. These two new species are distinguished from the other members of this clade mainly by the arrangement, shape and color pattern of humeral and dorsal-fin spots, as well as by other characters related to scale counts and body pigmentation. The placement of the new species within the “Rosy tetra” clade was based on the combination of morphological character states mentioned above and corroborated by a molecular phylogenetic analysis using the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase subunit 1. In addition, a new clade (here termed Hyphessobrycon copelandi clade) within the “Rosy tetra” clade is proposed based on molecular data, comprising H. copelandi, H. frickei sp. nov., H. geryi sp. nov. and a still undescribed species. Our results corroborate the occurrence of hidden species within the “Rosy tetra” clade, as suggested by previous studies.

The Munim River basin is one of the main river drainages of the Hydrological unit Maranhão, but there are few published studies which focus on ichthyological surveys and taxonomic work within this basin. The present study aims to provide a fish species inventory of the Mata da Itamacaoca, one of the few urban protected areas from the upper Munim River basin, comparing the ichthyofauna with other lists by conducted at the upper Munim River basin. A total of 42 collection expeditions were conducted, the sampling was conducted at five collecting sites distributed within the boundaries of Mata de Itamacaoca, upper Munim River basin. Diversity indices were calculated and generalised linear models (GLMs) were employed to assess differences in species richness, diversity and evenness depending on season and location in relation to the reservoir dam wall. In order to visualize fish community differences, non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) and a one-way PERMANOVA was used to understand whether factors of site, season and location to the dam wall had an effect on fish community compositions. A total of six orders, 13 families, and 23 fish species were found, and the order with the highest species richness, considering all reaches, was Characiformes followed by Cichliformes. The most abundant species was Nannostomus beckfordi, while Pimelodella parnahybae and Hoplerythrinus unitaeniatus were the rarer species sampled. There were no alien invasive species collected within the study area. Species richness was significantly higher below the dam wall, but there were no other significant differences in diversity indices with regards to season or location. Fish community composition was significantly different above and below the dam wall and was significantly affected by sampling site. Season did not have an effect on fish community. This study corroborates other studies conducted in the Unidade Hidrológica Maranhão sensu Hubbert and Renno (2006), that the ichthyofaunal composition and taxonomy of species within this region face major data deficits, anthropogenic impacts, this study may be a baseline for comparing similar environments throughout the region.