Scientists have discovered two distinctive, undescribed species of the crenuchin genus Poecilocharax living in the tributaries of the Rio Aripuanã drainage, a large tributary of the Rio Madeira, Amazon Basin.
A team of scientists from Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, the Federal University of Rondônia and the Federal University of Bahia has discovered two distinctive, undescribed species of the crenuchin genus Poecilocharax living in the tributaries of the Rio Aripuanã drainage, a large tributary of the Rio Madeira, Amazon Basin."It was exciting to find new species. But in the field, we saw the forest on fire, logging trucks carrying out huge trees, and cleared patches turned into cattle pasture," said Dr. Murilo Pastana, a researcher with the Division of Fishes in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History."This made us feel a lot of urgency to document these species and publish this paper as quickly as possible."The two newly-described species belong to Crenuchinae, a subfamily of the fish family Crenuchidae distributed in the Amazon Basin with pronounced sexual dimorphism and exuberant color patterns."This small subfamily is highly desirable in the aquarium hobbyist market," Dr. Pastana said."The exotic…