A scientist has described two new species of erethistid catfish from Bangladesh.
Heok Hee Ng of the Fish Division at the University of Michigan described the two new species as Pseudolaguvia muricata and P. inornata in a paper in the latest issue of the journal Zootaxa.
Ng undertook a study of preserved Pseudolaguvia in museum collections and found that the fish collected from Bangladesh appeared to be made up by two undescribed species.
P. inornata is known from the Feni River drainage and has a uniform colour pattern (the name inornata means "unadorned" and refers to the lack of pale markings on the flanks) a pale mid-dorsal stripe and brown submarginal stripes on the lobes of the tail.
P. muricata is known from the Brahmaputra River drainage and has elongated pectoral and dorsal fin spines.
Ng's two new Pseudolaguvia bring the total number in the genus to eight. The others are: P. ribeiroi; P. shawi; P. tuberculata; P. kapuri; P. tenebricosa and P. foveolata. The latter species was described by Ng earlier this year.
The highly-prolific Ng has described countless species of catfish in recent years, with four new species described in one issue of the journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters this month alone.
For more details on the new catfishes see the paper: Ng, HH (2005) - Two new species of Pseudolaguvia (Teleostei: Erethistidae) from Bangladesh. Zootaxa 1044: 35-47.