Last updated on:
23-Jan-2021
Serranochromis cacuchi Stauffer, Bills & Skelton, 2021
23-Jan-2021 — Four new species of Serranochromis described
By Juan Miguel Artigas Azas
Four new species of riverine cichlids in the genus Serranochromis from the Cuanza and Okavango river systems in Angola (to where they are probably endemic) have been described by Jay Stauffer, Paul Skelton and Rober Bills in the journal Zootaxa. The four species, namely Serranochromis alvum (meaning blotches from Latin, in reference to the prominent lateral pigmentation), S. cacuchi (referring the type locality at Cacuchi River), S. cuanza (referring the type locality at Cuanza River) and S. swartzi (after the primary collector Dr. Ernst Swartz - ichthyologist at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity) differ from each other and other Serranochromis species in a combination of morphological, meristic and color pattern features which include distance between eyes, angle of snout or mouth cleft, presence or not of ocelli in the anal fin, and others. No phylogenetic support based on DNA comparison is offered by the authors.
Stauffer, Jay Richard Jr. & Roger Bills, Paul H. Skelton. 2021. "Four new species of Serranochromis (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from the Cuanza and Okavango river systems in Angola, including a preliminary key for the genus". Zootaxa. 4908(1):66–84. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4908.1.4 (crc11108) (abstract)