| Citation |
Kodeeswaran, P., D.G. Smith, T.T.A. Kumar and U.K. Sarkar, 2023. A new species of the conger eel genus Macrocephenchelys from deep waters of the Arabian Sea. J. Fish Biol. 103(1):130-135.
[First published online, pp. 1-6, 12 May 2023. Volume, issue and pages added 5 July 2023.] |
| Remarks |
A new species of the genus Macrocephenchelys is described herein based on a single specimen collected from the deep-sea trawl landing at Kalamukku fish landing centre, Kerala coast, Arabian Sea. The new species is distinguished by having a dorsal-fin origin behind the middle of pectoral fin, a larger head, shorter trunk, larger gill opening, dorsal surface of body with dark-brown colour and ventral surface of head and belly with numerous patches of melanophores before anus, vertebrae 14-30-151. The new species shares most of the characteristics with Macrocephenchelys brevirostris but differs from it by having a more anterior dorsal-fin origin (vs. over the tip or slightly behind the pectoral-fin tip), larger head [15.3% total length (TL) vs. 10.5%–13.9% TL, 53.2% pre-anal length (PAL) vs. 35.8%–47.6% PAL], shorter trunk length (13.6% TL vs. 14.4%–20.6% TL, 47.3% PAL vs. 52.4%–66.2% PAL); further it shows 7.9%–8.1% genetic divergence from the sequences of M. brevirostris. |
