Abstract
A new cave-dwelling species, Triplophysa macrocephala sp. nov. is described based on specimens collected from a karst cave in Renguang village, Lihu Town, Nandan County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. The new species can be distinguished from its congeners by possessing the following combination of characters: pectoral fin not reaching beyond pelvic-fin origin; caudal fin forked; body smooth or scaleless; dorsal-fin origin anterior to pelvic-fin origin, edge of dorsal fin truncate; dorsal fin with eight branched rays; anal fin with five branched rays; eye small and vestigial; lower jaw arched with a median notch; air-bladder wrapped in bony capsule, lateral enlarged, posterior chamber of air-bladder degenerated.
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by systematic and conservation studies on cave fishes in Guangxi (2060302); Nation Science Foundation of China (NSPC-30730017 and NSFC-31071907). We are grateful to anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. We thank WS Jiang (KIZ) for taking photo of ventral view of head of T. macrocephala. We thank JH Lan for collecting the type specimens.
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J. Yang and T.-J. Wu contributed equally to this paper
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Yang, J., Wu, TJ. & Yang, JX. A new cave-dwelling loach, Triplophysa macrocephala (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Balitoridae), from Guangxi, China. Environ Biol Fish 93, 169–175 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9901-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9901-4