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| Enteromius niggie Scheepers, Bragança & Chakona, 2024 DOI: 10.1111/jfb.15870 |
Abstract
A growing body of evidence indicates that the global diversity of freshwater fishes has not been fully documented. Studies of freshwater fishes that were previously thought to be morphologically variable have revealed the existence of deeply divergent lineages, with many distinct species. In southern Africa a number of Enteromius species exhibit either exceedingly wide or divided distribution patterns that should be rare for freshwater fishes with limited dispersal opportunities between river systems. One such species is the sidespot barb, Enteromius neefi. As currently defined, E. neefi has a disjunct distribution that is divided between rivers in the northeast escarpment in South Africa and Eswatini, and tributaries of the Upper Zambezi in Zambia and southern Congo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a large geographic gap between these two populations. With the use of molecular and morphological methods, the level of divergence between the two populations was examined, and a new species was described from the Steelpoort River in the Limpopo River system of South Africa. Findings from this study provide further evidence for a number of taxonomic problems within the goldie barbs of southern Africa, and some taxonomic rearrangements are proposed for this group.
Keywords: color pattern, Cypriniformes, integrative taxonomy, systematics
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| General body features and live colouration of Enteromius niggie sp. nov. (a) Male during breeding season, field ID NPEJ21-B081 37.9 mm SL (SAIAB360). (b) Male during non-breeding season, field ID NPEJ21-B080, 41.1 mm SL, holotype (SAIAB 236359). |
Enteromius niggie sp. nov.
[niggie: ‘nᶕᶍi] (g/ch from Afrikaans/Dutch) is pronounced with a hard guttural sound, made at the back of the throat.
Proposed common names: Southern sidespot barb;
Suidelike sykol ghieliemientjie (Afrikaans).
Diagnosis: E. niggie sp. nov. belongs to the goldie barb group in southern Africa, which is characterized by species with a soft primary dorsal-fin ray, a relatively short compact body (<70 mm SL), the presence of two pairs of well-developed barbels, 24–30 lateral line scales, and a bright golden breeding colouration in males. Along with E. niggie the goldie barb group includes the species E. pallidus (Smith 1841), E. brevipinnis (Jubb 1966), E. neefi s.s. (Greenwood, 1962), E. thamalakanensis (Fowler 1935), E. greenwoodi (Poll, 1967), E. lineomaculatus “Malawi” (Boulenger 1903), and E. viviparus (Weber 1897). E. niggie and E. neefi can be readily distinguished from all the aforementioned species by the presence of distinctive pigmentation along the margins of flank scales that are expressed as wavy parallel lines (Figure 4a,b). Further, E. niggie can be distinguished from E. neefi by the lack of wavy parallel lines below the lateral line (Figure 4c) and by the lack of dark bold and rounded spots on the dorsal midline of the body (Figure 4d).
Etymology: When describing the species E. neefi, Greenwood (1962) used the Afrikaans word neef, which means “male cousin,” a humorous acknowledgment to Graham Bell-Cross (1927–1998) who collected the types of E. neefi and often called Greenwood by the Afrikaans word oom which means “uncle” (Paul Skelton, personal communication). Therefore, in keeping with Afrikaans familial terms, the use of nig [‘nᶕᶍ] to name the new species, which means “female cousin,” is a symbolic representation of the historical association between these two species, which were considered to represent disjunct populations of the same species.
Martinus Scheepers, Pedro H. N. Bragança and Albert Chakona. 2024. Naming the other Cousin: A New Goldie Barb (Cyprinidae: Smiliogastrininae) from the northeast escarpment in South Africa, with proposed taxonomic rearrangement of the goldie barb group in southern Africa. Journal of Fish Biology. DOI: doi.org/10.1111/jfb.15870
