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. 2022 Jul 18:1113:111-152.
doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1113.81240. eCollection 2022.

A new species of Astronotus (Teleostei, Cichlidae) from the Orinoco River and Gulf of Paria basins, northern South America

Alfredo Perez Lozano  1 , Oscar M Lasso-Alcalá  2 , Pedro S Bittencourt  3 , Donald C Taphorn  4 , Nayibe Perez  4 , Izeni Pires Farias  3
Affiliations

A new species of Astronotus (Teleostei, Cichlidae) from the Orinoco River and Gulf of Paria basins, northern South America

Alfredo Perez Lozano et al. Zookeys. .

Abstract

Based on morphological and molecular analysis of Astronotus species, a new species is described from the Orinoco River and Gulf of Paria basins in Venezuela and Colombia. Morphologically, it differs from Astronotuscrassipinnis and Astronotusocellatus in pre-orbital depth, caudal peduncle depth, head width, and caudal peduncle length, with significant differences in average percentage values. Osteologically, it differs from the two described species by lacking a hypurapophysis on the parahypural bone (hypural complex) and having two or three supraneural bones. Another characteristic that helps diagnose the new species is the morphology of the sagitta otolith, which is oval with crenulated dorsal and ventral margins and a rounded posterior edge. Genetically, the new species is distinct from all the other lineages previously proposed for the genus, delimited by five single locus species delimitation methods, and also has unique diagnostic nucleotides. Phylogenetic analyses support the monophyly of the new species as well as all other species/lineages. Astronotus species have considerable genetic, anatomical, and sagitta otolith shape differences, but have few significant traditional morphometric and meristic differences, because there is high variability in counts of spines, soft dorsal-fin rays, and lateral-line scales. It is clear that this new species is genetically and anatomically differentiated from all other species within the genus, and deserves recognition as a new valid species.

Keywords: DNA; fish; freshwater; morphometrics; osteology; sagitta otoliths; taxonomy.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Meristic counts. Abbreviations: ALL - scales above upper lateral line to dorsal fin origin; BLL - scales below lower lateral line to anal-fin; E1 - scales longitudinal above the lower lateral line; LLL - lower lateral-line scales; ULL - upper lateral-line scales. Image modified from López-Fernández and Taphorn (2004).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
View lateral and internal face of sagitta otolith of Astronotus, illustrating measurements. Abbreviations: OL otolith length; SUL - acoustic sulcus length; OCL - ostial colliculum length; CCL - caudal colliculum length; PRD - post rostrum distance; RL - rostrum length; OW - o width; CCW - caudal colliculum width; OCW - ostial colliculum wide; RW - rostrum width.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Astronotusmikoljii sp. nov., preserved holotype MCNG 56677 (240.12 mm SL), Venezuela., Estado Apure, Municipio Pedro Camejo in a small stream tributary of Arauca River. Photograph: Ivan Mikolji.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Radiographs of paratypes of Astronotusmikoljii sp. nov. and details of the supraneural bones AMHNLS 198 (116.7 mm SL) BMHNLS 26123 (140.4 mm SL) CMHNLS 24054 (227.5 mm SL). Scale bars: 10 mm.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Radiographs of the caudal skeleton in Astronotus species showing magnified details AA.mikoljii sp. nov. (MHNLS 24059, 205.5 mm SL) BA.crassipinnisINPA-ICT 33889 (204.3 mm SL) CA.ocellatusUSNM 284442 (79.6 mm SL). Abbreviations: hypurapophysis (PP) of parahypural bone (PH), epurals (E1 – E2) and neural spine (NEU2, diastema (D), preural centrum (CP), epaxial caudal rays (ECR), hypaxial caudal rays (HCR), epaxial procurrent caudal rays (EPCR) hypaxial procurrent caudal rays (HPCR). Scale bars: 2 mm.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Left sagitta otoliths (medial view) of AAstronotusmikoljii sp. nov. BA.crassipinnisCA.ocellatus. Scale bars: 1 mm.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Map showing all the sites sampled in this study. The circles represent sampling localities based on specimen records used for morphological analyses, the squares represent sampling localities of the genetic material analyses, and the stars represent the type locality of each species. The colors represent the consensus of the species delimitation methods. Astronotusmikoljii sp. nov. (red), A.crassipinnis (green), A.ocellatus (blue), Astronotus sp. “East” (yellow), Astronotus sp. “Jurua” (orange), and Astronotus sp. “Negro” (brown).
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
Astronotusmikoljii sp. nov. A live coloration of specimens collected with holotype B Natural shallow pond and type locality in floodplain of Arauca River Venezuela. Photographs: Ivan Mikolji.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Maximum clade credibility tree from 9,000 posterior trees generated using BEAST 2.6. Dataset comprised 22 unique haplotypes (from a total of 102) of AstronotusCOI sequences. Bayesian posterior probabilities above 0.95 are shown as dark nodes. Species delimitations are shown by method as colored boxes. The number of collapsed individuals is indicated in parentheses and outside of it the locations where they were sampled. The scientific name of the new species is red. The figure was created in R 4.1.1 using the package ‘ggtree’ and the final graphic in Inkscape.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
Plot of scores of Canonical Variants Analysis (CVA), from comparative sagitta otoliths morphometric data of Astronotusmikoljii sp. nov. (red crosses), A.ocellatus (blue squares), and A.crassipinnis (green triangles).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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