Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 2557 No. 1: 3 Aug. 2010
Type: Articles
Published: 2010-08-03
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.2557.1.2
Page range: 19–28
Abstract views: 28
PDF downloaded: 2

Status and phylogeny of Milyeringidae (Teleostei: Gobiiformes), withhe description of a new blind cave-fish from Australia, Milyeringa brooksi, n. sp.

Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803; USA
Fish blind cave stygobites taxonomy troglodytic

Abstract

A phylogeny of Milyeringidae is reported and a new species, Milyeringa brooksi, is described from Cape Range National Park in the North West Cape (Cape Range Peninsula) of Australia. This species is distinguished on the basis of morphological and molecular characters from its only congener Milyeringa veritas. These diagnostic characters are related to a unique pattern of sensory papillae on the body and synapomorphies in three genes (cytochrome c oxidase I, cytochrome b, and NADH dehydrogenase 2). The new species is known only from the southern portion of the North West Cape spanning roughly 50 kilometers of subterranean habitat. This habitat is exceedingly rare and measures to preserve it and its fauna should be taken.

References

  1. Adams, M. & Humphreys, W.F. (1993) Patterns of genetic diversity within selected subterranean fauna of the Cape Range peninsula, Western Australia: systematic and biogeographic implications. Recordings of the Western Australia Museum, 45, 145–164.

    Humphreys ,W.F. (2001) Milyeringa veritas (Eleotridae), a remarkably versatile cave fish from the arid tropics of northwestern Australia. Environmental Biology of Fishes, 62, 297–313.

    Humphreys, W.F. (2006) Can otolith microchemistry reveal whether the blind cave gudgeon, Milyeringa veritas (Eleotridae), is diadromous within a subterranean estuary? Environmental Biology of Fishes, 75, 439–453.

    Hubbs, C.L. & Lagler, K.F. (2004) revised by Smith GR. Fishes of the Great Lakes Region, Revised Edition. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 332 pp.

    Miller, P.J. (1973) The osteology and adaptive features of Rhyacicthys aspro (Teleostei:Gobioidei) and the classification of gobioid fishes. Journal of Zoology, London, 171, 397–434.

    Page, T.J., Humphreys, W.F. & Hughes, J.M. (2008) Shrimp down under: evolutionary relationships of subterranean crustaceans from Western Australia (Decapoda: Atyidae: Sygiocaris) . PLOS one, 3, 1–12.

    Romero, A. & Vanselow, P.B.S. (2000) Threatened fishes of the world: Ophisternon candidum (Mees) (Synbranchidae) . Environmental Biology of Fishes, 57, 36.

    Swofford, D.L. (2001) PAUP* Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and Other Methods) Version 4. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.

    Stamatakis, A., P. Hoover, & Rougemont, J. (2008) A Rapid Bootstrap Algorithm for the RAxML Web-Servers. Systematic Biology, 75, 758–771.

    Thacker, C.E. & Hardman, M.A. (2005) Molecular phylogeny of basal gobioid fishes: Rhyacicthyidae, Odontobutidae, Xenisthmidae, Eleotridae (Teleostei:Perciformes:Gobioidei). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 37, 858–871.

    Thacker, C.E. (2009) Phylogeny of Gobioidei and placement within Acanthomorpha, with a new classification and investigation of diversification and character evolution. Copeia, 2009, 93–104.

    Whitley, G.P. (1945) New sharks and fishes from Western Australia. Part 2.— Australian Zoologist, 11, 1–42.

    Wongrat, P. & Miller, P.J. (1991) The innervation of head neuromast rows in eleotridine gobies (Teleostei: Gobioidei). Journal of Zoology, London, 225, 27–42.