Ichthyologists from the Czech Republic and Argentina have described a new species of pike cichlid from the Paraná River drainage in Argentina
Naming the new cichlid Crenicichla hu in a recent issue of the journal Zootaxa, Lubomír Piálek and coauthors distinguish from congeners in the region in having a combination of: dark grey or dark brown to black color of body and fins, 7–9 black irregular blotches on the flank, 47–54 scales in row E1, and the dorsal fin of adult females with a pattern of black and white longitudinal stripes and/or blotches.
The status of Crenicichla hu as a distinct species was confirmed by a phylogenetic study conducted in the same paper using the mitochondrial ND2 gene.
Crenicichla hu was collected from a swift, clear stream with a substrate of sand, mud and stone. It is named after the Guaraní word for black (hu), in reference to its dark colour.
For more information, see the paper: Piálek, L, O ŘiÄan, J Casciotta and A Almirón (2010) Crenicichla hu, a new species of cichlid fish (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from the ParanaÌ basin in Misiones, Argentina. Zootaxa 2537, pp. 33–46.