A new Congrid eel, Rhynchoconger smithi sp. nov. (Anguilliformes: Congridae), from the Bay of Bengal, India

Abstract

A new Conger eel species is described based on four specimens collected from Petuaghat fishing harbour, West Bengal, India. The combination of morphological characters and molecular data are discordant with the seven congeners currently recognized. Rhynchoconger smithi sp. nov. can be distinguished by having head smaller than trunk; pre‐anal length more than three times in total length; a small eye, diameter 2.0–2.2 in snout length; rictus ending at a vertical through posterior margin of pupil; ethmovomerine teeth patch small, with 58–74 blunt teeth arranged in seven to eight irregular rows; vomerine teeth patch small, with 18–28 granular teeth arranged in four to six irregular rows, distinctly separated by narrow spaces from the ethmovomerine and maxillary teeth; three supraorbital pores and one supra‐temporal pore; and 159+ to 164 total vertebrae. Moreover, R. smithi differs significantly from four congeners, R. nitens, R. flavus, R. ectenurus and R. gracilior, with Kimura two‐parameter (K2P) distances 14.6%–20.3%.

A new deep‐water conger eel of the genus Rhynchoconger (Anguilliformes: Congridae) from the south‐west coast of India, Arabian Sea

“…The new species differs from all the Indian water congeners by having more pre-anal vertebrae (35 vs. 31-32 in R. ectenurus, 29-31 in R. randalli; 32-33 in R. smithi, 30-31 in R. squaliceps) (Mohapatra et al, 2022). Furthermore, the new species differs from R. ectenurus by having more predorsal pores (7-8 vs. 3-4 in R. ectenurus), more prepectoral fin pores (8-9 vs. 5-6), vomerine teeth separate from maxillary (vs. attached), trunk smaller than head (0.7-0.9 vs. 1.1-1.4 times in HL), longer PAL (2.7-2.9 vs. 3.3-3.4 times in TL), smaller eye (8.6-10.1 vs. 5.5-6.7 times in HL) and smaller snout (5.0-5.4 vs. 3.5-3.8 times in HL) (Mohapatra et al, 2022). R. bicoloratus differs from R. squaliceps by having vomerine tooth patch longer and pointed (vs.…”

“…The new species differs from all the Indian water congeners by having more pre‐anal vertebrae (35 vs . 31–32 in R. ectenurus , 29–31 in R. randalli ; 32–33 in R. smithi , 30–31 in R. squaliceps ) (Mohapatra et al ., 2022). Furthermore, the new species differs from R. ectenurus by having more predorsal pores (7–8 vs .…”

“…5.5–6.7 times in HL) and smaller snout (5.0–5.4 vs . 3.5–3.8 times in HL) (Mohapatra et al ., 2022). R. bicoloratus differs from R. squaliceps by having vomerine tooth patch longer and pointed ( vs .…”

“…Of these, three species, Rhynchoconger flavus (Goode & Bean, 1896), Rhynchoconger gracilior (Ginsburg, 1951) and Rhynchoconger guppyi (Norman, 1925), are distributed in the Western Atlantic (Fricke et al ., 2022), Rhynchoconger ectenurus (Jordan & Richardson, 1909) (Kotthaus, 1968; Manilo & Bogorodsky, 2003; Venu, 2013), Rhynchoconger randalli Acharya et al ., 2022, Rhynchoconger smithi Mohapatra et al ., 2022 and Rhynchoconger squaliceps (Alcock, 1894) are distributed in the Western Pacific and Indian oceans (Acharya et al ., 2022; Mohapatra et al ., 2022), Rhynchoconger nitens (Jordan & Bollman, 1890) is distributed along the Eastern Pacific, and Rhynchoconger trewavasae Ben‐Tuvia, 1993 is distributed along the Red Sea. Among these nine species, only three species were documented from the deep waters: R. ectenurus was collected from 200 to 500 m depth along Taiwan waters (Mohapatra et al ., 2022), R. guppyi from 137 to 458 m depth of the Western Central Atlantic and R. trewavasae from 400 m depth at the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea (Ben‐Tuvia, 1993). During sampling at Kalamukku Fishing Harbour, Kochi, located on the coast of the Arabian Sea, three specimens of Rhynchoconger were collected from deep‐water trawl landings.…”