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Danté Fenolio (3)

Description: There are three species in this genera: X. dorsalis, X. xiurenensis and X. gigas. Dorsal soft rays (total): 8; Anal soft rays: 12. Xiurenbagrus dorsalis can be diagnosed from its congeners by the following combination of characters: 7 dorsal-fin branched rays (vs. 6 in X. xiurenensis and X. gigas); pelvic-fin origin opposite base of fourth branched dorsal-fin ray (pelvic-fin insertion posterior to dorsal-fin base in X. xiurenensis and X. gigas); serrations absent on the posterior edge of pectoral-fin spine (vs. strong serrations present in X. xiurenensis and X. gigas); adipose fin confluent with caudal fin (vs. adipose fin posteriorly with a free flap and not confluent with caudal fin in X. xiurenensis and X. gigas); maxillary barbel longer than head length and reaching posterior tip of pectoral-fin (vs. maxillary barbel shorter than head length, reaching or slightly exceed pectoral-fin insertion in X. xiurenensis and X. gigas); eyes absent (vs. small eyes present in X. xiurenensis and X. gigas). Habitat: Inhabits a very small underground stream with substrate of small rocks. The stream flows across the bottom of the well. A pump is connected to a 4 m depth well with plastic piping. The type specimen emerged through the water during pumping. Etymology: The specific name dorsalis: dorsal, referring to unique position of dorsal-fin origin (posterior to vertical line at tip of pectoral fins) when compared with its congeners. Remarks: The description of X. dorsalis brings the currently recognized diversity of this genus to three species, all of which are distributed in the Pearl River basin. There are many unique characters of Xiurenbagrus dorsalis when compared with X. xiurenensis and X. gigas as listed above. Though Xiurenbagrus dorsalis is a blind catfish, it is placed in Xiurenbagrus because of the presence of two patches of vomerine teeth. This character is not found in any other species of Amblycipitidae except those of the genus Xiurenbagrus.

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Amblycipitidae

Asia: China, Guangxi.

5.0cm (2ins)

18-22°C (63-71°F)

6.5-7.5.

Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2017. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version (08/2017).
The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database © Christopher Scharpf.
Xiu, L.-H., J. Yang and H.-F. Zheng, 2014. An extraordinary new blind catfish, Xiurenbagrus dorsalis (Teleostei: Siluriformes: Amblycipitidae), from Guangxi, China. Zootaxa 3835(3):376-380.