Abstract
The Uberaba River is an important right-bank tributary to the Grande River, in the Upper Paraná River system, Brazil, and the main water source for the public supply of the Uberaba city, Minas Gerais state. An inventory, an identification key, and photographs of the fish species of the Uberaba River are provided, based on samples made between 2012 and 2014 at 14 sampling sites in the river system. A total of 73 species was recorded from six orders, 20 families, and 49 genera. Characiformes and Siluriformes are the most speciose orders and Characidae and Loricariidae are the most commonly recorded families. Most species are autochthonous, nine are considered allochthonous, and two species are exotic. The Uberaba River has a diverse and heterogeneous ichthyofauna, typical of rheophilic environments, with endemic species and few non-native species.
Highlights
34,797 species of fish have been formally described worldwide (Fricke et al 2018), and recent estimates suggest that ca. 13,000 species are partially or exclusively freshwater (Nelson 2016)
We present an inventory of the fish fauna of the Uberaba River based on samples from several sections of the river system
The Uberaba River catchment area is located in the southeastern region of Minas Gerais state, Brazil, center-south of the Triângulo Mineiro region, 19°30'37"S – 20°07'40"S; 47°39'2"W – 48°34'34"W (Figure 1)
Summary
34,797 species of fish have been formally described worldwide (Fricke et al 2018), and recent estimates suggest that ca. 13,000 species are partially or exclusively freshwater (Nelson 2016). The Neotropical region has a unique and diverse freshwater fish fauna (Albert and Reis 2011), with 9,100 species exclusively distributed in South America (Reis et al 2016), an impressive number when compared to the global estimates. 43% of the Neotropical fish diversity occurs in Brazil (Buckup et al 2007), and the Amazon and La Plata river drainages bear the largest fish diversity in South America (Langeani et al 2007). 3 million km across five countries, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay, and is the second largest drainage in South America, with the main drainages the Paraná-Paraguay drainage and Uruguay River (Albert and Reis 2011). In the Brazilian portion, the Upper Paraná River system drains the states of Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Paraná, comprising the subsystems of the Grande, Paranaíba, Tietê, and Paranapanema rivers (Souza-Filho and Stevaux 1997; Langeani et al 2007)
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