Scientists have described a second species of Brazilian compsurine tetra from the Kolpotocheirodon genus.
The new species, which was discovered in the upper rio Paraguau basin in Bahia, northeastern Brazil has been named Kolpotocheirodon figueiredoi Malabarba, Lima and Weitzman in their description in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
The Kolpotocheirodon genus was erected in 2000 by Malabara and Weitzmann for the only other known species, K. theloura, which is a member of the characin subfamily Cheirodontinae. It is placed in the Compsurini tribe.
Malabarba, Lima and Weitzman used a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to analyse the tail of the fish and discovered a new, possibly glandular, organ found only in the tail of males - this is only known so far in the two Kolpotocheirodon species and diagnoses the genus.
The other Kolpotocheirodon species, which reaches around 3cm in length, is found in uppermost tributaries of the So Francisco and Paran rivers near Braslia, Brazil.
For more details on the new species see the paper: Malabarba, LR, FCT Lima & SH Weitzman, 2004. A new species of Kolpotocheirodon (Teleostei: Characidae: Cheirodontinae: Compsurini) from Bahia, northeastern Brazil, with a new diagnosis of the genus. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117: 317-329.