A new species of Hemibrycon (Characiformes, Characidae, Stevardiinae) from the upper Magdalena River basin in Colombia

Abstract

Hemibrycon iqueima sp. nov., is described from small streams in the Magdalena drainage at the foothills of the western slope of the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, Suarez municipality, Tolima Department, Colombia. The new species is distinguished from its congeners in the Magdalena-Cauca River basin by a combination of characters related to snout-anal-fin origin length, head length, dorsal-pectoral fin distance, dorsal-fin-hypural distance, postorbital distance, orbital diameter, snout length, number of total vertebrae, pre-dorsal scales, scale rows between anal-fin origin and lateral line, number of branched rays of the anal fin, maxillary teeth number and number and arrangement of hooks on the branched rays of the pectoral and dorsal fins. In addition, the validity of this species is supported by previous molecular analyses that included specimens of the new species that had been erroneously identified. Phylogenetic relationships between the new species and congeners from Pacific coast basins are discussed.

Species delimitation of neotropical Characins (Stevardiinae): Implications for taxonomy of complex groups

“…raqueliae [103], but based on our results and the comparison with topotypes (Rio Tasajo, Samaná, Caldas, Colombia), we recently described to Hemibrycon aff. raqueliae (Quebrada Batatas, Suarez, Tolima, Colombia) as one new species [104].…”

Photafish system: An affordable device for fish photography in the wild

“…However, shortcomings persist in the systems traditionally used for the photography of live fish in the field, and the quality and homogeneity of the resulting images employed by many ichthyologists. The Photafish System and workflow described and tested in this study helped to overcome multiple difficulties ranging from specimen capture to the final editing of photos for publication (e.g., García-Melo et al 2018) or use in conservation campaigns.…”

“…Despite polarization of the taxonomic community on this issue, the visual recognition of individual specimens has been essential to scientific discoveries in several fields of biology (Wilder 2009). From the early days of taxonomy, species descriptions have been accompanied by various types of visual support that are vital to convey information about the morphology and character states used to distinguish species (Akkari et al 2015, García-Melo et al 2018. Currently, the use of digital images in taxonomy has focused on photo-identification methods (Dala-Corte et al 2016) in studies of large vertebrates (Bertulli et al 2015;Koivuniemi et al 2016;Treilibs et al 2016), amphibians (Sannolo et al 2016), lizards (Sreekar et al 2013;Knox et al 2016), invertebrates (Caci et al 2013, Chim & Tan 2012, fishes (Speed et al 2007;Dala-Corte et al 2016), and bats (Rydell & Russo 2014).…”

“…Furthermore, many published images are not based on standardized methods and are thus hard to compare, especially when backgrounds differ. Therefore, it is important to establish standards for taking TIPs that reflect advances in digital photography (see García-Melo et al 2018).…”

Fishes from the Río Alvarado drainage, Upper Río Magdalena Basin, Colombia

“…The Upper Río Magdalena Basin is a region with a relatively well documented ichthyological knowledge in Colombia, which is reflected in the high variety of works published recently, life history studies Zúñiga-Upegui et al 2014), patterns of community structure (Miranda et al 2018;Montoya-Ospina et al 2018;Poveda-Cuellar et al 2018), ecomorphology (Conde-Saldaña et al 2017), exotic species (Albornoz-Garzón and Villa-Navarro 2017), new species descriptions (Ortega-Lara et al 2011;García-Alzate et al 2015;García-Melo et al 2016;Provenzano and Villa-Navarro 2017;Villa-Navarro et al 2017;Albornoz-Garzón et al 2018;García-Melo et al 2018), karyotype descriptions (Conde-Saldaña et al 2018, 2019aIbagón et al 2020), and list of species (Villa-Navarro et al 2006). However, our understanding of basic aspects of the fishes from small drainages in the Upper Magdalena is still limited.…”