Checklist of the species of notothenioid fishes

Abstract

We provide our perspective on the species-level taxonomy of notothenioid fishes, the dominant component of the fish fauna of Antarctica. There are 140 species in 45 genera, an increase of 15% since the previous summary in 2000. Biogeographically, 30 species are non-Antarctic, 33 are sub-Antarctic and 77 are Antarctic. The checklist is documented with footnotes that provide the rationale for our decisions. Supplementary Material provides additional details for our decisions on two species of Pogonophryne.

The mitochondrial genome of the red icefish (Channichthys rugosus) casts doubt on its species status

“…2) differ by 421–540 substitutions and 25–34 indels (253–272 substitutions and 6–11 indels when the ND6 / D-loop region is excluded; Table 3). Thus, the divergence of the mitochondrial genomes of Channichthys rhinoceratus and C. rugosus is consistent with the existence of a single species within the genus Channichthys (Eastman & Eakin, 2021). If this result should be confirmed by further molecular data, Channichthys rugosus may need to be synonymized with C. rhinoceratus .…”

“…In most cases, these species were described on the basis of few specimens only. To address a felt demand for a "complete overhaul" (Duhamel, Gasco, & Davaine, 2005;Eastman & Eakin, 2021) of the systematics of the genus Channichthys, Nikolaeva and Balushkin began a series of investigations based on comprehensive comparisons of specimens in the collections of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, the Ukranian National Museum of Natural History in Kyiv, and the British Natural History Museum in London. Their analyses indicated that the duplicate gill rakers observed in C. rhinoceratus, C. panticapaei, C. bospori, and C. irinae, but also in more distantly related icefishes, are a rather labile character (Balushkin & Nikolaeva, 2015), leading them to suggest the synonymization of the latter three Channichthys species (Nikolaeva, 2019).…”

“…The diversification of fishes of the perciform suborder Notothenioidei in Antarctic waters is a rare example of adaptive radiation in the marine environment (Clarke & Johnston, 1996; Eastman, 2005; Matschiner et al, 2015; Near et al, 2012; Rüber & Zardoya, 2005). The radiating group of notothenioid fishes is composed of five families (Nototheniidae, Harpagiferidae, Artedidraconidae, Bathydraconidae, and Channichthyidae; jointly called ”Cryonotothenioidea” (Near et al, 2015)) that together include over 100 species, distributed primarily on the shelf areas surrounding Antarctica and sub-Antarctic islands (Eastman & Eakin, 2021; Gon & Heemstra, 1990). The validity of most species within this radiation is well established and in many cases corroborated by genetic data.…”

“…However, in other cases, species are known only from few specimens and distinguished from congeners based on minute morphological differences alone. One such example is the genus Pogonophryne (Artedidraconidae), for which close to twenty species have been described within the last four decades (Eastman & Eakin, 2021), primarily on the basis of variation in the morphology of the mental barbel ( e.g . Spodareva & Balushkin, 2014).…”

Biological aspects of a rare nototheniid fish, Trematomus tokarevi, from the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)

“…The genus Trematomus Boulenger, 1902, includes fifteen benthic or epibenthic species, from small to moderate size, which dominate the continental shelf regions of Antarctica (Eastman and Eakin 2021). Most of them are circum-Antarctic and almost exclusively distributed in the High-Antarctic Zone (Kock 1992).…”