Saurida weijeni – Species Splash

Meet the Cheshire… fish?

From the deep waters of Guimaras Island in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines and the North Macclesfield Bank in the South China Sea comes a discovery: Saurida weijeni sp. nov., a newly described species belonging to the family Synodontidae and genus Saurida.

The species was described and figured by Dr. Maria Celia D. Malay of UP MSI, together with Dr. Barry C. Russell, Curator Emeritus at the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Australia, and Roxanne A. Cabebe-Barnuevo, PhD student at the Kagoshima University Museum, Japan.

Saurida weijeni possesses a large mouth that extends to the back of its eyes, along with small, numerous, canine-like teeth on its jaws. It falls under the Saurida undosquamis group, a complex of species found across the Indo-West Pacific. Saurida weijeni can be distinguished from other species in the group by several features, such as having fewer scales on its sides, fewer vertebrae, black or dusky stomach and intestine, fewer cells that contain melanin, and fewer, relatively indistinct black spots on the upper margin of its tail fin.

Specimens of Saurida weijeni from the Cabalagnan Fish Port in Guimaras Island were collected during a survey by the University of the Philippines Visayas, as part of a broader project on DNA barcoding fishes from the Western Visayas region. Meanwhile, specimens from the Macclesfield Bank were collected during a survey of the area’s tropical deep-sea benthos, led by Wei-Jen Chen from National Taiwan University, after whom the species was named.

Link to full paper: doi.org/10.6620/ZS.2024.63-40

Photos courtesy of Roxanne A. Cabebe-Barnuevo