New Species 2022 is a collaboration between SHOAL, the IUCN Freshwater Fish Specialist Group, and the California Academy of Sciences.
201 new freshwater fish species described in 2022
- Thread starter Byron
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The voyage of discovery goes on.
Link won't open for me
Ok! I'll search it sometime. Thanks.
It's interesting to see the many descriptions of Tanichthys, the white cloud group. There are a lot of new ones being found, as people are finally taking a good look at them.
I'm very intrigued at the number of new but undescribed lampeye killifish of the Genus Platopocheilus that are being found. They aren't being described as they have no commercial value - too small to eat and too far from shipping centres to be aquarium fish.
There's no money in taxonomy, and it can take years for new discoveries to be closely looked at. But I like lampeyes and am reading of a mind blowing species diversity in Gabon. I think the next few years should be interesting for them.
I'm very intrigued at the number of new but undescribed lampeye killifish of the Genus Platopocheilus that are being found. They aren't being described as they have no commercial value - too small to eat and too far from shipping centres to be aquarium fish.
There's no money in taxonomy, and it can take years for new discoveries to be closely looked at. But I like lampeyes and am reading of a mind blowing species diversity in Gabon. I think the next few years should be interesting for them.
OP
OP
In the linked document, there is an interview with Roberto Reis, one of the foremost ichthyologists, and he is asked about describing a new species. His response suggests why new species descriptions are so long in coming. Dr. Reis has described 151 new taxa including 139 distinct species and 17 new genera.
"This is not a simple process. It usually takes many years of detailed study of a museum or other biodiversity collection, careful fieldwork, and lots of reading of specialised literature. Once you have the expertise, you must compare newly collected specimens (or those residing in a collection) with type-specimens (those previously used to describe species) and published descriptions. Then you will be able to find the subtle differences that can tell independent evolutionary lineages (i.e. species) apart. In the last 20 or so years, the possibility of using DNA segments to help this process has improved our ability to detect such lineages and demonstrate they are evolving independently. This is the process of discovering undescribed diversity. Describing and publishing is a much simpler processes, that also requires some expertise and training. I am proud of having trained many grad students in both parts of the process."
those are some interesting fish! they are so unique to what we already have, i thought they would just have very minor differences but I was wrong!
As @Byron pointed out, the process of describing fish is a meticulous one. My comment on how slow it is relates to how few people go into taxonomy. There isn't a lot of funding compared to more commercial areas of science. There is a good development underway, as the old system of Europeans or Americans going into countries and removing apparent new species for description is mutating under regulatory pressure. Now, the work has to be done with scientists from the countries where the fish are found in many cases, and that's expanding the resources and leading to more African, Asian or South American scientists getting access to the training and opportunities.
If all goes well I'll be in the field in Africa with a group of Ichthyologists this summer, and I'll be learning how to do the first preserving and documenting of the new to science species. It actually looks likely I'll find a few, as fauna-wise, it's an area that's only partially explored, and my interests are a bit offbeat. I'm interested in fish groups that the real researchers tend not to be. If I find nothing, I will learn about more about the habitats of my favourite fish in a week than I've managed to learn in years of reading.
What's found could sit preserved for years after I'm gone before someone would look at it though. It's not like there are huge numbers of taxonomists looking for projects.
The number of species we don't know about is enormous. You can't base much on aquarium availability, and what we can get is shrinking, not expanding. The centralized chain stores are doing that 'for' us. I have seen a couple of hundred aquarium perfect species that are not in the trade with any regularity, and a lot of species that once were relatively common are no longer sold. It's easier to control prices with linebred and mutated fish manufactured on farms.
But beyond our world of the fish trade, 201 freshwater species is kind of sad. There are so many more being found, as we open logging and mining roads into rainforests (to destroy those habitats) and fish explorers have access to the many small waterways that are exposed.
An interesting exercise is to look at how many Corydoras and Aspidoras species there are that are awaiting description. It's easy to find online, and it's an eye opener.
If all goes well I'll be in the field in Africa with a group of Ichthyologists this summer, and I'll be learning how to do the first preserving and documenting of the new to science species. It actually looks likely I'll find a few, as fauna-wise, it's an area that's only partially explored, and my interests are a bit offbeat. I'm interested in fish groups that the real researchers tend not to be. If I find nothing, I will learn about more about the habitats of my favourite fish in a week than I've managed to learn in years of reading.
What's found could sit preserved for years after I'm gone before someone would look at it though. It's not like there are huge numbers of taxonomists looking for projects.
The number of species we don't know about is enormous. You can't base much on aquarium availability, and what we can get is shrinking, not expanding. The centralized chain stores are doing that 'for' us. I have seen a couple of hundred aquarium perfect species that are not in the trade with any regularity, and a lot of species that once were relatively common are no longer sold. It's easier to control prices with linebred and mutated fish manufactured on farms.
But beyond our world of the fish trade, 201 freshwater species is kind of sad. There are so many more being found, as we open logging and mining roads into rainforests (to destroy those habitats) and fish explorers have access to the many small waterways that are exposed.
An interesting exercise is to look at how many Corydoras and Aspidoras species there are that are awaiting description. It's easy to find online, and it's an eye opener.
And there are still so many species that aren't discovered yet. The search goes on...
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