Apistogramma psammophila – a new geophagine dwarf cichlid (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from the Rio Atabapo drainage in Colombia and Venezuela

Title: Apistogramma psammophila – a new geophagine dwarf cichlid (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from the Rio Atabapo drainage in Colombia and Venezuela

Creators: Wolfgang Staeck, Ingo Schindler

Submitted June 29, 2018.
Accepted January 10, 2019.
Published online at www.senckenberg.de/vertebrate-zoology on February 15, 2019.
Published in print on February 27, 2019.

DOI: 10.26049/VZ69-1-2019-05 
PDF/A 4.1MB

Published by Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung

Date (Publication Year): 2019

Resource Type (General): TEXT

Resource Type (optional): Vertebrate Zoology, Scientific Article

Description: Apistogramma psammophila sp. n. is described from the lower Rio Atabapo drainage in Colombia (Departamento Guainía) and Venezuela (Estado Amazonas). It can be distinguished from all congeners by the following combination of characters: Two dark horizontal stripes on body side, two pectoral spots, suborbital stripe becoming much wider ventrally, and no caudal spot. In adult males soft dorsal and anal fins each with long filamentous prolongation almost reaching posterior margin of caudal fin, and pelvic fins with filamentous extension, nearly reaching middle of anal-fin base.
It is most similar to Apistogramma diplotaenia Kullander, 1987, but differs from this species by an irregular pattern of 6 – 8 short vertical dark bar-like markings below the lower lateral stripe, and adult males with reddish area on cheek and chest between eye and pectoral axilla and distinctly lanceolate caudal fin.

Keywords: Apistogramma diplotaenia, Cichlinae, Departamento Guainía, Estado Amazonas, Geophagini, ichthyology, new species, Orinoco basin, taxonomy.

Citation: Staeck, W., Schindler, I. (2019). Apistogramma psammophila – a new geophagine dwarf cichlid (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from the Rio Atabapo drainage in Colombia and Venezuela. Vertebrate Zoology, 69(1): 103-110. https://doi.org/10.26049/VZ69-1-2019-05