A pair of South American fish biologists have described a new species of loricariid from Misiones in Argentina.
The new plec, which has been named Rineloricaria misionera, was described in the systematics journal Zootaxa by Monica Rodriguez of the Museo de la Plata in Buenos Aires and Amalia Miquelarena of the Institute of Limnology in Buenos Aires.
The fish, which is a member of the Loricariidae subfamily Loricariinae, was discovered in the Rio Parana and Rio Uruguay systems in Misiones, which is in the north east of the country.
R. misionera has a unique pattern of plates on its abdomen which make it distinguishable from all other species: the anterior abdominal area is covered with plates but the area around the pelvic girdle (the part where the pelvic fins attach to a paired bone inside the fish) is free of plates.
Eight other species of Rineloricaria are known from Argentinian waters, including: R. lima; R. catamarcensis; R. felipponei; R. thrissoceps; R. pareiacantha; R. parva and R. lanceolata (the latter two are sometimes considered Hemiloricaria).
For more details on this species see the paper: Rodriguez, MS and AM Miquelarena (2005) - A new species of Rineloricaria (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the Parana and Uruguay River basins, Misiones, Argentina. Zootaxa 945: 1-15.