Dozens of possible new fish species found in Bolivia

4 Jan. () –

The number of fish species recorded in the Madidi National Park (Bolivia) has doubled to a staggering 333 species, 35 of them potentially new to science.

This is how it is described in a study carried out within the framework of the Madidi Identity expedition, led by the Wildlife Conservation Society. The results are published in Neotropical Hydrobiology and Aquatic Conservation.

The 35 possible new species for science include candidates from the genera Knodus, Microgenys, Moenkhausia, Characidium, Apareiodon, Brachyhypopomus, Ernstichthys (genus reported for the first time in Bolivia), Astroblepus, Trichomycterus (including a recently described species named after a pioneer French ichthyologist in Bolivia), and a three-barbel catfish (Cetopsorhamdia), a striking pike cichlid (Crenicichla) and a charming bumblebee catfish (Microglanis), among others.

Biodiversity studies and field research were carried out between 2015 and 2018 by specialists of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement de Montpellier (France) and the National Museum of Natural History and the Institute of Ecology of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés.

The Madidi is probably the most biologically diverse protected area in the world due to a unique altitudinal gradient of almost 6,000 meters that spans the tropical Andes and the Amazon, informs the WCS in a statement.

Species previously cataloged by science range in size, from the invasive arapaima (Arapaima gigas)a giant who breathes through his mouth, weighs more than 200 kilos and measures more than 3 meters, to the seasonally abundant killifish (Anablepsoides beniensis) of the Rivulidae family, found in natural savannah pools and measuring just 1.5 centimeters. The list also includes the most attractive game fish in the Amazon, the dorado (Salminus brasiliensis), as well as migratory catfish, from the Amazonian goliath catfish (Brachyplatystoma filamentosum) to the tiny chipi chipi pencilfish, whose massive collective migration is a local phenomenon (Trichomycterus barbouri).

Another killifish (Orestias sp.) is found in some of the highest Andean lakes, at 4,300 meters in Madidi, while in stagnant ponds the wonderful Amazon electric knifefish (Gymnotus carapo) and the marsh eel (Synbranchus madeirae) , and in fast-flowing streams of the Amazon headwaters, several species of naked catfish (Astroblepus spp.), probably including several species new to science.