The neotropical fish family Chilodontidae (Teleostei: Characiformes) : a phylogenetic study and a revision of Caenotropus Günther

Abstract

A series of synapomorphies for the characiform family Chilodontidae, in addition to those proposed by Vari (1983), are discussed. These involve modifications of the suspensorium, hyoid arch, infraorbitals, lower jaw, supraorbital portion of the laterosensory canal system in the frontal, and lateral-line scales. The chilodontid genera Chilodus Miiller and Troschel (1844) and Caenotropus Giinther (1864) are diagnosed as monophyletic on the basis of derived features of the third postcleithrum, lower jaw, hyoid arch, pterotic, supracleithrum, and the laterosensory canal systems in the infraorbitals, frontal, and posterior lateral-line scales. Modifications of a subset of those systems, the subopercle, dentition, suspensorium, third postcleithrum, and pigmentation define subunits of Caenotropus or are autapomorphic for its species. Caenotropus is revised, with Tylobronchus Eigenmann (1912) considered a junior synonym. Three Caenotropus species are recognized: C. labyrinthicus (Kner, 1858) widely distributed in the Rio Amazonas and Rio Orinoco basins, the upper Essequibo River basin in Guyana, the Saramacca and Suriname Rivers in Suriname, and the Rio Parnafba, northeastern Brazil; C. maculosus (Eigenmann, 1912) ranging from the Essequibo River of Guyana to the Fleuve Maroni of French Guiana; and C. mestomorgmatos, new species, from the acidic black waters of the middle and upper Rio Negro in Brazil and Venezuela and the upper Rio Orinoco in southern Venezuela. Chilodus labyrinthicus rupununi Fowler (1914) is placed into the synonymy of Caenotropus labyrinthicus. Keys are provided to the genera Caenotropus and Chilodus and to the species of Caenotropus. A lectotype is designated for Microdus labyrinthicus Kner. The biogeographic implications of the geographic distribution of subunits of the Chilodontidae are discussed. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. SERIES COVER DESIGN: The coral Montastrea cavernosa (Linnaeus).

Phylogeography of the piranha genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus: implications for the diversification of the Neotropical ichthyofauna

“…The occurrence of S. manueli in the Negro is inferred here to be a consequence of recent dispersal from the Orinoco and a similar distribution pattern is found among several other characiform fishes such as Hydrolycus wallacei (Toledo‐Pizza et al . 1999), Boulengerella laterstrigata (Vari 1995), Curimatopsis evelynae (Vari 1982), Cyphocharax multilineatus and C. gangamon (Vari 1992b), Caenotropus mestomorgmatos (Vari et al . (1995), Creagrutus runa and C. zephyrus (Vari & Harold, 2001).…”

Continuous and Arrested Morphological Diversification in Sister Clades of Characiform Fishes: A Phylomorphospace Approach

“…This study used a set of phylogenies generated from a supermatrix containing 463 morphological characters and 174 taxa. These characters and taxa were assembled from the original data matrices and in‐text descriptions from 14 separate studies on the whole Anostomoidea (Vari 1983) or components of it (Winterbottom 1980; Vari 1982, 1984, 1989a,b,c, d, 1991, 1992a,b; Vari et al 1995; Castro and Vari 2004; Sidlauskas and Vari 2008) and were supplemented with information from species descriptions published after corresponding familial revisions (Vari and Nijssen 1986; Vari and Reis 1995; Vari and Blackledge 1996; Vari and Ortega 1997; Vari and Chang 2006; Scharcansky and Lucena 2007). Analysis was conducted in PAUP* ver.…”

Historical biogeography of South American freshwater fishes

“…The geographical distribution of the characiform species included here was compiled from current revisions published by the specialists of each group: 67 species of Curimatidae (Vari, 1982a,b, 1984, 1989a,b, 1991, 1992a,b; Vari & Reis, 1995), 7 of Chilodontidae (Vari et al. , 1995; Vari & Ortega, 1997), 21 of Prochilodontidae (Vari, 2004), 132 of Anostomidae (Garavello & Bristski, 2003), 28 of Hemiodontidae (Langeani, 2003), 23 of Parodontidae (Pavanelli, 2003), 69 of Crenuchidae (Buckup, 1993, 2003), 7 of Ctenoluciidae (Vari, 1995), 10 of Erythrinidae (Oyakawa, 2003), 59 of Lebiasanidae (Weitzman & Weitzman, 1982, 2003), 14 of Cynodontidae (Menezes & Lucena, 1998; Géry et al.…”