Description

SINGLE PAPER

Volume 8, Issue 2 – March 2004

James C. Tyler and Philip A. Hastings: Emblemariopsis dianae, a new species of chaenopsid fish from the western Caribbean off Belize (Blennioidei), pp. 49-60

Abstract

Emblemariopsis dianae, new species, is described based on 35 males. It is easily distinguished from its congeners by the orange flag distally between the first three dorsal fin spines, without a whitish band below the flag, and modally three mandibular sensory pores instead of the four that are typical of most chaenopsids. The new species exhibits significant variation in number of cephalic sensory pores in selected series and in details of the caudal skeleton, including variation in the only known synapomorphy of the genus Emblemariopsis, the shape and size of the neural spine of the penultimate vertebra. The new species has been found only in low-energy, mid-shelf, lagoonal waters of the Belize Barrier Reef.