A new species of cave-dwelling hepapterid catfish has been described from Venezuela.
The new catfish, which is a member of the Heptapteridae family, was found in underground rivers in the Ro Guasare drainage, Sierra de Perij, northwestern Venezuela.
It has been named Rhamdia guasarensis by Carlos DoNascimiento, Francisco Provenzano and John G. Lundberg in a paper in this month's issue of the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
Unlike other members of the Rhamdia genus, R. guasarensis has a concave profile to the head, along with a number of troglomorphic characters, such as pinky skin and no eyes, which the species has evolved for life underground.
For more details see the paper: DoNascimiento, C., Provenzano, F. and JG. Lundberg (2004) - Rhamdia guasarensis (Siluriformes: Heptapteridae), a new species of cave catfish from the Sierra de Perij, northwestern Venezuela, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington: Vol. 117, No. 4, pp. 564-574, 2004