A new species of ghost knifefish has been found in Venezuela.
The new fish, which has been named Sternarchorhynchus gnomus, has recently been described by Donald Taphorn and Carlos de Santana in the journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters.
The species is the smallest known member of the Sternarchorhynchus genus and was discovered in Venezuela's lower Rio Caroni drainage.
Taphorn and de Santana say that the new knifefish can be told apart from other Sternarchorhynchus using the following unique combination of characters:
"It is diagnosed from congeners on the basis of body coloration, meristic and morphometric characters, such as color pattern of pectoral and anal fi ns, number of scales above lateral line at mid-body, and relative body proportions."
The genus Sternarchorhynchus was erected in 1855 by Castelnau and currently contains six other species: S. britskii, S. curvirostris, S. mesensis, S. mormyrus, S. oxyrhynchus and S. roseni.
For more information see the paper: de Santana CD and DC Taphorn (2006) - Sternarchorhynchus gnomus, a new species of electric knifefish
from the Lower Rio Caroni, Venezuela (Gymnotiformes: Apteronotidae). Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 1-8, 4 fi gs., 2 tabs., March 2006.