Triplophysa wulongensis, a new species of cave-dwelling loach (Teleostei, Nemacheilidae) from Chongqing, Southwest China

Abstract

We describe a new species of cave-dwelling loach, Triplophysa wulongensissp. nov., based on specimens collected in a subterranean pool in a cave in Wulong County, Chongqing, Southwest China. The pool is connected to the Wujiang River drainage. Triplophysa wulongensis differs from its congeners by the following combination of characters: eyes present, caudal fin with 18 branched rays; posterior chamber of the air bladder degenerate; stomach U-shaped; intestine without bends or loops immediately posterior to stomach; body smooth and scaleless, and lateral line complete. The mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence differs from those of other published sequences of species of Triplophysa by 14.9–24.9% in K2P distance. Phylogenetic analysis based on cytochrome b gene sequences recovered T. wulongensis as sister taxon to all other cave-dwelling species of Triplophysa.

Novel genome sequence of Chinese cavefish (Triplophysa rosa) reveals pervasive relaxation of natural selection in cavefish genomes

“…They belong to the family Nemacheilidae in the order Cypriniformes (Liu et al, 2012). Triplophysa is one of the largest genera of these loaches, with nearly 160 species discovered to date (http://resea rchar chive.calac ademy.org/resea rch/ichth yolog y/catal og/fishc atmain.asp), including 34 cavefishes (Chen et al, 2021). Triplophysa species are found worldwide but mainly inhabit the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding areas, including karst areas in southwestern China.…”

Triplophysa daryoae, a new nemacheilid loach species (Teleostei, Nemacheilidae) from the Syr Darya River basin, Central Asia

“…Overemphasis on some characteristics with eco-phenotypic variation, such as body color, color patterns, barbel length, and mouth structure, when identifying Triplophysa species may be misleading (Ren et al 2018). Therefore, it is advisable to employ a combination of morphological and molecular approaches to distinguish between loach species (Chen et al 2021;Sheraliev and Peng 2021b;Deng et al 2022;Lu et al 2022).…”

“…The Fergana Valley is a mountainous region and its fish fauna differs from that of other regions in Uzbekistan. Triplophysa dorsalis (Kessler, 1872), T. elegans (Kessler, 1874), T. ferganaensis Peng, 2021, andT. strauchii (Kessler, 1874) have been recorded from the rivers of the Fergana Valley (Turdakov 1963;Sheraliev and Peng 2021b).…”

Triplophysa ferganaensis, a new loach species from Fergana Valley in Central Asia (Teleostei: Nemacheilidae)

“…The combined use of morphological and molecular approaches for distinguishing closely related Triplophysa species provides effective results (Chen and Peng, 2019; Chen et al . 2021; Feng et al . 2017; Feng et al ., 2019).…”