Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
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Online Publication Date: 23 Dec 2020

A New Species of Snakehead (Teleostei: Channidae) from East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, Northeastern India

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Page Range: 938 – 947
DOI: 10.1643/CI2020007
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A new species of colorful snakehead from Meghalaya, northeastern India is distinguished from all its congeners by possessing a uniform bright blue to bluish-green body, bright-blue dorsal, anal, and caudal fins, submarginally black with white distal margin, series of brown to maroon-red, rounded, oblong or clover-shaped blotches or spots on dorsolateral, postorbital, and ventrolateral region of head, continued on body forming oblique pattern or randomly distributed. The new species superficially resembles C. pardalis and C. bipuli in appearance, but it can be distinguished from both in having brown to maroon-red, rounded, oblong or clover-shaped blotches or spots on head and sides of the body (vs. possession of well-defined, black to brown, rounded to oblong spots), fewer pre-dorsal scales (7 vs. 8–9), more caudal-fin rays (15 vs. 13), and more vertebrae (49 vs. 45). The new species differs from both C. pardalis and C. bipuli by Kimura's two-parameter (K2P) distance of 4.2–4.8 and 4.9–6.0% in the coxI gene sequence. A key to the snakehead Gachua group of the Eastern Himalayan region is provided herein.

Copyright: © 2020 by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
Fig. 1. 
Fig. 1. 

Channa aristonei. (A) Holotype, BNHS FWF 1017, 136 mm SL; lateral, dorsal, and ventral views; (B) paratype, BNHS FWF 1018, 155 mm SL.

Fig. 2. 
Fig. 2. 

Channa aristonei. (A) Holotype, BNHS FWF 1017, 136 mm SL; (B) paratype, BNHS FWF 1018, 155 mm SL; (C) paratype, BNHS FWF 1042, 131 mm SL.

Fig. 3. 
Fig. 3. 

(A) Channa aristonei, 150 mm SL, uncatalogued specimen (Photo credits: M. R. Aristone); (B) Channa pardalis, CIARI/FF-57, 120 mm SL; (C) Channa bipuli, CIARI/FF-56, 119 mm SL.

Fig. 4. 
Fig. 4. 

Type locality of Channa aristonei, India, Puriang, East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, 25°33′47.5″N, 92°06′24.5″E.

Fig. 5. 
Fig. 5. 

Phylogenetic position of Channa aristonei based on the maximum likelihood analysis. Values along nodes are percent bootstraps for 1,000 iterations. Blue circle denotes the GenBank accession number for paratypes of C. aristonei (BNHS FWF 1018, 1040, 1042); red circle denotes the GenBank accession numbers for C. bipuli (BNHS FWF 1057, CIARI/FF-56) and C. pardalis (BNHS FWF 1058, CIARI/FF-57) generated in the present study. Sequences of Parachanna sp. (MF496973) are used as an outgroup. See Data Accessibility for tree file.

Received: 16 Jan 2020
Accepted: 09 Aug 2020
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