A new species of Bryconops (Characiformes: Iguanodectidae) from Atlantic coastal drainages of Suriname and French Guiana

Abstract

A new species of Bryconops is described based on its unique caudal-fin color pattern, with a dark blotch occupying the mid-basal region of the caudal-fin dorsal lobe, and a combination of 29-32 branched anal-fin rays, 44-47 perforated scales in the lateral line, six rows of scales above the lateral line, and a deep body (30.3-31.7 % SL). The new species belongs to the subgenus Bryconops based on its edentulous and short maxilla, with the posterior extension of that bone not reaching the junction between the second and third infraorbitals. The new species was previously reported in the literature as B. caudomaculatus. However, these species differ from each other in morphometric and meristic characters, as well as in color pattern. Comments on distribution of Bryconops species in coastal drainages of Suriname and French Guiana additional support for biogeographic hypotheses in this area.

Body Shape Variation in the Bryconops Melanurus Complex (Characiformes: Iguanodectidae) Using Traditional and Geometric Morphometrics

“…Traditional and geometric morphometrics proved to be a successful way to study patterns of body shape variation across different geographic regions. This study supports previous literature that species-level diversity within the genus Bryconops remains underestimated (Silva Oliveira, 2021). More studies using morphometrics should be performed not only on the genus Bryconops, but on other freshwater fish in South America, as well.…”

“…-and all freshwater fish in general-is important for making effective, data driven conservation management decisions. Ultimately, we cannot protect what we do not know and the species-diversity within the genus Bryconops remains underestimated (Silva Oliveira, 2021). As this study shows, there is much more species-diversity within Bryconops than was previously understood and further studies will likely expand upon this and distinguish even more species of Bryconops.…”

“…Introduction Currently, the genus Bryconops (Kner, 1858) has 27 described species (Table 1 and 2), making it the most species-rich genus in the characiform family Iguanodectidae (Chernoff & Machado-Allison, 1999Silva-Oliveira et al, 2020, 2021. It is comprised of small-sized tetras (Guedes et al, 2016;Silva-Oliveira et al, 2018, 2019aWingert et al, 2018) from the cis-Andean freshwater river basins of South America (including Orinoco, Amazon, and Paraguay), as well as small Atlantic coastal drainages ranging from Venezuela to the Parnaíba River in Brazil (Fricke et al, 2022;Silva-Oliveira et al, 2020, 2021van der Sleen & Moreira, 2018). Species of Bryconops are typically found in lotic habitats with acidic water, whether transparent or black water.…”

“…Bryconops is further divisible into two subgenera: Bryconops and Creatochanes (Chernoff & Machado-Allison, 1999;Silva-Oliveira et al, 2021). Chernoff and Machado-Allison (1999) categorize the two based on three criteria: i.)…”

Identification of fish specimens of the Tocantins River, Brazil, using DNA barcoding

“…The literature reports deep genetic divergence, cryptic speciation, a species complex, recent description of new species, or population structuring in 13 (76.47%) of the 17 genera shown in quadrant II of Figure 2: Bivibranchia (Nogueira et al, 2021), Bryconops (Silva‐Oliveira et al, 2021), Colomesus (Amaral et al, 2013), Geophagus (Ximenes et al, 2021), Hemigrammus (Albornoz‐Garzón et al, 2019; Marinho et al, 2014), Hoplias (Guimarães et al, 2022; Pires et al, 2021), Leporinus (Nascimento et al, 2023; Silva‐Santos et al, 2018), Moenkhausia (Benine et al, 2009; De Carvalho et al, 2011; Pereira et al, 2013), Mugil (Hasan et al, 2021), Nannostomus (Benzaquem et al, 2015), Pimelodella (Pugedo et al, 2016), Potamotrygon (Renza‐Millán et al, 2019), and Trachelyopterus (Dos Santos et al, 2021; Haerter et al, 2023).…”