Cichlid fish exhibit a complex behavioral repertoire, mainly regarding social and reproductive behaviors. Nevertheless, although dwarf cichlids exhibit a remarkable diversity of behaviors, only a few studies have been conducted with these fish.Apistogramma trifasciata is a common dwarf cichlid in the Neotropics and widely used as ornamental fish. Both males and females are territorial and engage in biparental care. Here we observed the behavior of A. trifasciata males and females to construct an ethogram. We registered the parental care of a couple since the spawn until the moment when the offspring became independent. Striking behaviors were observed, such as male-male contests involving circling displays and mouth wrestling, and parental care, which involved mouth brooding and parental color change. Finally, we suggest that our results may be used to establish this species as a model for parental care and territoriality studies.
This paper provided a list of all new Brazilian Hexapoda species described in 2020. Furthermore, based on the information extracted by this list, we tackled additional questions regarding the taxa, the specialists involved in the species descriptions as well as the journals in which those papers have been published. We recorded a total of 680 new Brazilian species of Hexapoda described in 2020, classified in 245 genera, 112 families and 18 orders. These 680 species were published in a total of 2019 articles comprising 423 different authors residing in 27 countries. Only 30% of these authors are women, which demonstrates an inequality regarding sexes. In relation to the number of authors by species, the majority of the new species had two authors and the maximum of authors by species was five. We also found inequalities in the production of described species regarding the regions of Brazil, with Southeast and South leading. The top 10 institutions regarding productions of new species have four in the Southeast, two at South and with one at North Region being the outlier of this pattern. Out of the total 219 published articles, Zootaxa dominated with 322 described species in 95 articles. The average impact factor was of 1.4 with only seven articles being published in Impact Factors above 3, indicating a hardship on publishing taxonomic articles in high-impact journals. The highlight of this paper is that it is unprecedent, as no annual record of Hexapoda species described was ever made in previous years to Brazil.
Trophobiosis between ants and homopterans is widely known. Nevertheless, this interaction can also happen between treehoppers and other animals in a non-mutualistic way. For instance, here we observed the wasp Pseudopolybia vespiceps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) collecting honeydew flickered by Aethalion reticulatum (Hemiptera: Cicadomorpha) as an alternative food resource. Fieldwork was conducted during three consecutive days, when we made ad libitum behavioral observations using video footage. We noted the behavior of P. vespiceps when collecting honeydew from A. reticulatum. Strikingly, our observations resulted in the description of novel wasp behavior. The wasps compete with ants for access to treehoppers by kicking them out of the plant. Studies like this contribute to the understanding of trophic nets that depend on hemipteran honeydew.
A new species of Ilyobius Enderlein, 1910 (Megaloptera: Sialidae) from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest is described based on male, female, and larva. Ilyobius erebus sp. nov. is the 11th species in this genus, and the fourth reported in Brazil. In addition, male and female genitalia of I. hauseri (Contreras-Ramos, Fiorentin & Urakami, 2005) are redescribed based on the holotype and newly collected specimens at the type locality. Based on the current classification system, I. erebus sp. nov. is placed in the I. chilensis group, which was supported by male and female genital structures. The type locality of the new species is threatened by human impacts, and conservation of its habitat is needed.
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