Sinocyclocheilus xingrenensis (Cypriniformes, Cyprinidae), a new underground fish from Guizhou Province, Southeastern China

By

Xiao, Ming-Yuan
Wang, Jiajia
Luo, Tao
Zhou, Jia-Jun
XIAO, Ning
Zhou, Jiang

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025-2-24

Original Publication

Zoosystematics and evolution

Volume

101

Series / Issue

Issue: 2

Pages

419--436

Subjects

Beipanjiang River , cavefish , Morphology , Phylogeny , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.101.141444

 

Abstract

This study describes a new species, Sinocyclocheilus xingrenensissp. nov., collected from a cave near Xingren City, Guizhou Province, China. Morphologically, the new species can be distinguished from the 80 species currently assigned to the genus Sinocyclocheilus by a combination of the following characteristics: absence of horn-like structures and indistinct elevation at the head-dorsal junction; body scaleless, with irregular black markings scattered above the lateral line; tip of pectoral fin not reaching the pelvic fin origin; tip of pelvic fin not reaching the anus; lateral line complete and curved, with pores 65–77; tip of maxillary barbel reaching the anterior margin of the operculum; and six rakers on the first gill arch. Phylogenetic trees constructed based on mitochondrial genes indicate that the new species represents an independent evolutionary lineage with relatively large genetic differences of 2.8–9.0% for the mitochondrial Cyt b and 2.7–8.5% for ND4.