A case of albinism in Batrachoides surinamensis (Batrachoidiformes: Batrachoididae) from north-eastern Brazil

Abstract

This paper reports the occurrence of a specimen of the toadfish Batrachoides surinamensis caught from the Ilha do Maranhão, State of Maranhão, northeastern Brazil, which exhibited total albinism features.

First record of partial albinism in two catfish species of Genidens (Siluriformes: Ariidae) in an estuary of Southern Brazil

“…In natural environment, there are several reports of total or partial albinism in freshwater fishes (Westerman and Birge 1978;Sazima and PombalJr. 1986;Ueda et al 2007;Jeffery 2009) and marine fishes (Béarez 2002;Simon et al 2009;Piorski and Nunes 2010). Some cases of total or partial albinism in Siluriformes have been reported, e.g., Ictalurus punctatus (Westerman and Birge 1978), Trichomycterus itacarambiensis (Trajano 1997), Rhamdella minuta (Sazima and Pombal-Jr. 1986) Schizolecis guntheri (Brito and Caramaschi 2005), Ameiurus catus (Britton and Davies 2006) and Phreatobius cisternarum (Shibatta et al 2007).…”

First Report of Albinism in the Threatened Gillbacker Sea Catfish Sciades parkeri (Siluriformes, Ariidae)

“…Taking into account that albino specimens are more susceptible to predation than non-abnormal colored specimens [ 8 ], it is very interesting that the S. parkeri albino reported here has achieved sexual maturity, which is calculated to individuals around 50 to 70 cm SL [ 5,7 ]. In addition, it is known that albinos have pathological deficiencies, such as weak vision [ 8,16 ], for this reason it is most common in nocturnal fish (i.e.cryptobiotic) such as the Batrachoididae pacuma toadfish [ 17 ] and Anguillidae eels [ 18 ]. However, we can expect that the latter is not a major disadvantage for S. parkeri in the Amazon estuary due to the high concentration of suspended sediments thus, nearly zero visibility conditions, obligating fish and other aquatic fauna to depend on other sensory organs.…”

First record of Batrachoides surinamensis (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) and Canthidermis maculata (Bloch, 1786) (Pisces: Teleostei) from Rio Grande do Norte, northeastern coast of Brazil

“…Batrachoides surinamensis is reported in literature as ranging in Brazil from Amapá to Bahia states and it was recently recorded in Amapá (Maia et al 2016), Pará (Ferreira et al 2011), Maranhão (Piorski & Nunes 2010), Piauí (Mai et al 2012), Ceará (Osório et al 2011), Paraíba (Oliveira 2011), Pernambuco (Pinto et al 2015), and Alagoas (Paiva et al 2013). In the conservation status may not represent historical declines.…”