Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai, July 16 (Xinhua) -- The reporter learned from Shanghai Ocean University that researchers at the university have recently discovered three new species of fish unique to China: the green spotted rock loach, the pearl-fin rock loach, and the Hanlin fine-toothed loach. Related research papers have been published in the international academic journals Animal Systematics and Evolution and Zoological Classification.
According to Professor Tang Wenqiao of Shanghai Ocean University, the green spotted rock loach is a peculiar-looking fish that lives in the mountain streams from central Guangxi to western Yunnan, with a dark green body and black stripes like a zebra, which can be adsorbed on the stone like a disc, and the locals are vividly called "green zebra".
After field investigation, the research team collected specimens, photographed them, made morphological measurements and extracted DNA, and after sequencing, it was found that the genetic distance between the "green zebra" and the closest known species reached 5.20%, far exceeding the degree of genetic differentiation between most known species in the same group.
In the investigation of the distribution range and population survival of the "green spotted rock creeper", the researchers also found a group of fish similar to the "Bing's rock creeper" in the border area of Yunnan and Guangxi, with strings of "pearl" particles on their pectoral fins, which other populations do not have. Through DNA sequencing of the samples, the research team was pleasantly surprised to find that the minimum genetic distance between this species and "Bing's rock creeping loach" reached 11.15%, and the degree of genetic differentiation was very high, close to the differentiation level of the genus, which could be confirmed to be another new species, and the team named it "pearl-fin rock creeping loach".
In addition, the team of Professor Li Chenhong of Shanghai Ocean University recently reported in the internationally renowned journal "Zoological Taxonomy" a new species unique to China in the family "Zoological Taxonomy". This is the second new species of the genus Swarthya discovered by the team after the "Blunt Snout", which is distributed in Guangxi and named in honor of Professor Wu Hanlin of Shanghai Ocean University, a famous ichthyologist in mainland China.
Editor: Xie Zhe
Source: Xinhua News Agency