Parascolopsis akatamae, a new species of dwarf monocle bream (Perciformes: Nemipteridae) from the Indo-West Pacific, with redescription of closely related species P. eriomma.

Abstract

A new species of dwarf monocle bream, Parascolopsis akatamae n. sp., is described from the Indo-West Pacific. The new species is distinguished from all other species of Parascolopsis in having 16-19 gill rakers on the first arch, length of forked part of caudal fin 5.8-6.5 times in standard length, eye diameter 1.3-1.8 times in length of the longest dorsal-fin spine, and a pale yellow stripe present from lower edge of the eye to posterior edge of the preopercle. Parascolopsis eriomma (Jordan Richardson, 1909) is morphologically very similar to the new species and the two have been confused with each other for a long time. Therefore, we redescribe P. eriomma based on the holotype and newly collected specimens. In addition, we found that patterns of biofluorescence emission for both species are clearly different. This suggests that their biofluorescence patterns may function in distinguishing each other.