The Validity of the Haemulid Fish Pomadasys quadrilineatus Shen and Lin, 1984 with the Designation of the Neotype of Pomadasys stridens (Forrskål, 1775)

Abstract

A valid haemulid fish, Pomadasys quadrilineatus Shen and Lin, 1984, is redescribed.It is distributed on the East Asian Shelf, including Taiwan, Okinawa Island, and Miyazaki Prefecture (southeastern part of Kyushu Island, Japan). This species has been synonymized with P. striatum (Gilchrist and Thompson, 1908) and P. stridens (Forsska1, 1775), but differs in color pattern, meristic characters and geographic distribution. Pomadasys quadrilineatus is distinguished from the other two species by having five rather than four stripes on the body and lower counts (5-6 versus more than 6) for upper limb gill rakers. Pomadasys stridens is distributed of South Africa, in the Red Sea, in the eastern Mediterranean and off India, whereas P. striatum is distributed only off South Africa and in the Red Sea, including the Gulf of Suez. A neotype of P. stridens (Forsska1, 1775) is dedignated on the basis of a specimen collected from the type locality, the Red Sea