New species of the genus Nannostomus is described

[Tom C]

New species of the genus Nannostomus is described:

Nannostomus nigrotaeniatus spec. nov. - Ein neuer Ziersalmler aus Venezuela.
Axel Zarske.

The description can be downloaded HERE.

This is the fish which for some years has been labelled Nannostomus sp. "Black".
I luckily found a few specimens of this species as bycatch in a shipment from Colombia to the UK a few years ago, unfortunately only females:

It is worth noting that Zarske, in this description, support Géry in that Nannostomus erythrurus (Eigenmann, 1909) should be considered a separate species, as opposed to Weitzman, who, in 1966 and 1978, classified this as a synonym for Nannostomus trifasciatus (Steindachner, 1876).
Géry refers to findings of Scheel (unpublished) showing that these both species differ in their diploid chromosome number (N. erythrurus: 2n = 46, N. trifasciatus: 2n = 24 - 30).

Interesting to see if this description from Zarske causes some controversy too ... He presents no
location- or collecting data in this description either (He omitted such information in his description of Nannostomus rubrocaudatus too). Nannostomus nigrotaeniatus was imported to Aquarium Glaser in Germany, and said to come from the Rio Ventuari in Venezuela.

There is currently no other researchers (known to me) working on Nannostomus, it would have been very interesting if ZARSKE undertook the task of studying and classifying all the different populations and color variations which today go by the name Nannostomus marginatus.
I'll ask him ...

 

[Mike Wise]

Thanks for the info, Tom.

 

[Tom C]

Amazingly I found a few wild collected specimens in a LFS yesterday!
They came in a shipment said to be from Venezuela, and that fits well with this species' distribution range.

Male

Female:

Thus, the challenge awaits: Breeding them.....

 

[Mike Wise]

Good for you! Love the photos.

 

[rr16]

If someone wants to fund me and give me a lab I'll study pencilfish! I've even worked with DNA before (some years ago!). Never kept them in 20 years of keeping fish until recently, but got some N. beckfordi and accidentally bred them and then keeping a very small group of N. eques at the moment in the tank with my A. agassizzi male and 2 females which have a group of around 50 fry or so. Perhaps I'll manage to breed these when they've matured or when I win the lottery and have a fish house!
Good luck with breeding them!

 

[Tom C]

Good luck with the lottery, "rr16"!

It seems the link to the description is not working anymore;

New link to the description

.

 

[Mike Wise]

rr16, I suggest you wait until Dr. Stanley Weitzman decides to retire. I doubt he ever will. He's in his 90s and still actively works at the Smithsonian on nannostimins among others. None of associate/colleagues ever dare to 'step on his toes'.

 

[rr16]

rr16, I suggest you wait until Dr. Stanley Weitzman decides to retire. I doubt he ever will. He's in his 90s and still actively works at the Smithsonian on nannostimins among others. None of associate/colleagues ever dare to 'step on his toes'.

Ha ha, wish I'd written my thesis up now! Although it was completely unrelated to fish! Perhaps I'll look into studying for a Doctorate in some aspect of fish biology in the future (although I suspect the wife won't be too happy about me going back to University AGAIN!). I did briefly study some parasites of fish during my BSc and MSc, but never really much about the biology of fish and taxonomy (although I worked with a French taxonomist in China on a few occasions!). Still, how hard can it be in this modern age of phylogenetics to sequence the odd genome or two? Perhaps I'll stick to the lottery dream (although collecting specimens in 100% humidity at high temperatures, being plagued by biting dipteran vectors of many a parasite does actually sound like fun!)