The fishes of Cayo Arcas (Campeche Bank, Gulf of Mexico): an updated checklist

By

Robertson, D. Ross (David Ross), 1946-
Pérez-España, Horacio
Nuñez Lara, Enrique
Puc Itza, Francisco
Simões, Nuno

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2016

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

640

Pages

139-155

Subjects

endemic species , invasive damselfish species , reef-fishes , reef-habitat , Southwest Gulf of Mexico

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.640.10862

 

Abstract

Cayo Arcas is a small, offshore reef complex on the southwest corner of Campeche Bank, Gulf of Mexico. The only published information (from 2000) on the fishes of that reef refers to 37 species. Here additional information is added, some from unpublished observations during the 1980s, as well as author observations made during 2013 and 2016. These bring the checklist of that reef’s fishes up to 162 species. The possible effects of the limited number of fish habitats available at Cayo Arcas on the composition of its fish fauna are discussed. The Indo-Pacific damselfish Neopomacentrus cyanomos (Bleeker, 1856) was first recorded in the Atlantic in mid-2013, on shoreline reefs in the southwest corner of the Gulf of Mexico. Recently reviewed underwater photographs show that N. cyanomos also was present at Cayo Arcas in mid-2013, 350 km from the first-record site. Hence it evidently had a substantial population in the southwest Gulf of Mexico in 2013, and must have arrived in there long before that year.