New Fish Species Discovered at Remote Islands Off Mexico's Pacific Coast
Feb 28, 2024
Species is a wrasse found living among volcanic rubble in Mexico’s Revillagigedo Archipelago
Two females of the newly discovered species, Halichoeres sanchezi or the tailspot wrasse. Credit: Allison & Carlos Estape
AUTHOR
Alex Fox
A team of scientists including Ben Frable of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have discovered a new species of tropical fish during an expedition to the remote islands of the Revillagigedo Archipelago off Mexico’s Pacific coast. The fish is likely endemic to these islands, meaning it is found no place else on Earth. The Revillagigedos are sometimes called the “Mexican Galapagos” for their trove of marine biodiversity and rugged beauty.
The researchers describe the new species, dubbed Halichoeres sanchezi or the tailspot wrasse, in a paper published Feb. 28 in the journal PeerJ. Halichoeres sanchezi was named in honor of marine scientist Carlos Armando Sánchez Ortíz of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur (UABCS) who collected the first specimen and who organized the 2022 expedition that led to the fish’s discovery.
The eight specimens of the new species collected by the team range in size from around an inch long to nearly six inches. The smaller females of the species are mostly white with reddish horizontal stripes along their top half and black patches on their dorsal fin, behind their gills, and just ahead of their tail fin. Frable described the males as “orangy red up top fading to a yellow belly with a dark band at the base of the tail.”
Halichoeres sanchezi is a member of the wrasse family, a highly diverse and colorful group of more than 600 species. Most wrasse are less than seven inches long, such as the bluestreak cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus), but some get much larger like the California sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher) or the massive humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus), which can reach seven feet in length.
More:
https://today.ucsd.edu/story/new-fish-species-discovered-at-remote-islands-off-mexicos-pacific-coast
= new reply since forum marked as read
Blushing wrahhhhse!
