Taxonomy and systematics of the ‘Maharaja Barbs’ (Teleostei: Cyprinidae), with the description of a new genus and species from the Western Ghats, India

Abstract

Maharaja Barbs (Teleostei: Cyprinidae), endemic to the high-altitude streams of the northern Western Ghats are currently represented by a single species, Puntius sahyadriensis. Integrative taxonomic analysis of these fishes reveals them to form a distinct clade within the Cyprinidae, for which we propose the name Waikhomia gen. nov. Waikhomia differs from Puntius and other closely related genera by a combination of characters including: barbels absent; last unbranched dorsal-fin ray smooth, with highly segmented apex; total vertebrae 30 (17 abdominal and 13 caudal); post-epiphysial fontanelle absent, frontals elongated, parietals narrow; infraorbital 2–4 large, deep and wide, overlapping cheek and preopercle; opercle not overlapping the interopercle laterally; free uroneural 2 absent; lateral line complete, with 23–25 perforated scales; pelvic fins jet black with tip of fins white; and body coloration consisting of multiple (6–8) spots and blotches on side of body. We also describe a new species of Waikhomia from the west-flowing Kali river system in the northern part of the Western Ghats, India. The new species, Waikhomia hira is distinguished from W. sahyadriensis by a combination of characters including a distinct body coloration, consisting of 7–8 small, rhomboidal spots arranged across the lateral-line scale row; 23­–25 perforated lateral line scales; 10 pre-dorsal scales and 2–3 sparsely spaced gill rakers on epibranchial 1. Further, W. hira differs from its sister taxon, W. sahyadriensis, by a raw genetic distance ranging from 4.3–4.9% in partial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1, and 7.0–8.2% in partial cytochrome b genes.

Two new species of the hillstream loach genus Indoreonectes from the northern Western Ghats of India (Teleostei: Nemacheilidae)

“…Consistent with the arguments raised by Dahanukar et al (2011), Keskar et al (2018) and Katwate et al (2020) among others, our study further suggests that the earli- er notion that northern Western Ghats are species poor is the result of a lack of extensive taxonomic reviews rather than an actual species poverty. Further studies in the northern Western Ghats are likely to reveal much higher diversity among loaches in general and in the genus Indoreonectes in particular.…”

Molecular phylogeny and phylogeography of the freshwater-fish genus Pethia (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) in Sri Lanka

“…Hora [ 36 ] mentions only that “The dorsal fin… possesses a feeble and articulated spine which is considerably longer than the head; its free border is slightly concave though rounded at the top.” The holotype of ‘P.’ narayani , illustrated in Hora [ 36 ], exhibits three vertical bands on the side of the body. ‘ Pethia’ narayani in fact may belong to the recently described smiliogastrine genus Waikhomia [ 37 ]. ‘ Pethia’ sharmai differs from all congeners in having 40 or more scales along the lateral-line row (vs. 30 or less in Pethia sensu stricto: see Additional file 1 : Table S1).…”

“…The comparative genetic dataset representative of Smiliogastrinae based on Sudasinghe et al [ 11 ], together with additional sequences generated by Katwate et al [ 57 ], Katwate et al [ 37 ], Ren et al [ 25 ] and Sudasinghe et al [ 10 ], were compiled and used in the present study (Additional file 1 : Table S2). Among the 16 valid species of Pethia from Sri Lanka and peninsular India, 13 are represented in our cytb dataset, based on reliably identified specimens [present study; 16 , 19 , 23 , 24 , 28 , 30 , 31 , 58 ].…”

“…narayani, illustrated in Hora [36], exhibits three vertical bands on the side of the body. 'Pethia' narayani in fact may belong to the recently described smiliogastrine genus Waikhomia [37]. 'Pethia' sharmai differs from all congeners in having 40 or more scales along the lateral-line row (vs. 30 or less in Pethia sensu stricto: see Additional file 1: Table S1).…”

Diversity, phylogeny and biogeography of Systomus (Teleostei, Cyprinidae) in Sri Lanka

“…Sri Lanka's ichthyofauna, however, is depauperate in comparison with that of southern India. While some 20 genera of freshwater fishes are endemic to the Western Ghats, for example, only two (the cyprinid Rasboroides and the osphronemid Malpulutta ) are endemic to Sri Lanka (Dahanukar, Raghavan, Ali, Abraham, & Shaji, 2011; Dahanukar, Raut, & Bhat, 2004; Katwate et al, 2020; Sudasinghe, Herath, Pethiyagoda, & Meegaskumbura, 2018). Nevertheless, the island contains around 90 species of freshwater fishes: about half of these belong to Cyprinidae (Goonatilake et al, 2020; Pethiyagoda, 1991), a family which originated in South‐East Asia and dispersed to India after the India–Laurasia collision in the Early Eocene (Chatterjee, Goswami, & Scotese, 2013; Chen, Lavoué, & Mayden, 2013).…”