Pempheris gasparinii, a new species of sweeper fish from Trindade Island, southwestern Atlantic (Teleostei, Pempheridae).

Luiz A Rocha,Hudson T Pinheiro,Giacomo Bernardi

doi:10.3897/zookeys.561.7263

Abstract

Pempheris gasparinii sp. n. is described from five specimens, 59.1–68.0 mm in standard length. It is only known to occur in the shallow reefs of Trindade Island, 1200 km east of the Brazilian coast, in the southwestern Atlantic. Pempheris gasparinii is the third recognized species of Pempheris in the Atlantic Ocean. This new species is morphologically similar to its close relative, Pempheris poeyi, differing by the number of lateral-line scales (51–54 in Pempheris gasparinii vs. 47–49 in Pempheris poeyi), scales below lateral line (10–11 vs. 9), circumpeduncular scales (11–12 vs. 13), head and caudal peduncle lengths (2.7–3.3 vs 3.5–4.0 in head length). Moreover, Pempheris gasparinii shows a 4% genetic divergence from Pempheris poeyi at the cytochrome oxidase I locus (COI), consistent with a lineage split at the beginning of the Pleistocene. This new species represents the 12th endemic fish species from Trindade Island.

Highlights

The genus Pempheris Cuvier contains 69 valid species (Randall and Victor 2015), with two species known from the Atlantic Ocean: Pempheris poeyi Bean 1885 and P. schomburgkii Müller & Troschel, 1848
A phylogenetic tree of Pempheris of the Atlantic based on cytochrome oxidase I locus (COI) placed P. poeyi and P. gasparinii as sister species (Figure 4)
Assuming that intraspecific divergence is low, as it is in P. schomburgkii from Panama and Curacao (Fig. 4), the combined genetic and morphological data distinguish the two species

Summary

Introduction

The genus Pempheris Cuvier contains 69 valid species (Randall and Victor 2015), with two species known from the Atlantic Ocean: Pempheris poeyi Bean 1885 and P. schomburgkii Müller & Troschel, 1848. A disjunct distribution has been previously assigned to Pempheris poeyi, with populations occurring in the Greater Caribbean and in Trindade Island, Brazil (Pinheiro et al 2015), at least 5,000 km apart. There is overlap in counts of dorsal- and anal-fin rays between the Greater Caribbean and Trindade populations, a common observation among Pempheris species (Mooi and Randall 2014), which likely explains why the new Trindade species described was misidentified in two recent checklists (Simon et al 2013, Pinheiro et al 2015, Randall and Victor 2015). We describe a third Atlantic Ocean Pempheris species, so far only known from Trindade Island, at the end of the Vitória-Trindade Chain, 1200 km off the Brazilian coast

Methods

Results

Conclusion