Compsaraia samueli, the pelican knifefish,[1] is a species of apteronotid electric fish from the western Amazon basin of Brazil and Peru. It exhibits pronounced sexual dimorphism in which mature males develop extremely elongated snouts and oral jaws. [2] This phenotype is found in several other apteronotid species and is used in agonistic jaw-locking behaviors between males.[3]

Compsaraia samueli
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Gymnotiformes
Family: Apteronotidae
Genus: Compsaraia
Species:
C. samueli
Binomial name
Compsaraia samueli
(Albert & Crampton, 2009)

A study comparing skull shape and jaw-closing performance in males and females of Compsaraia samueli suggested that males with elongated faces for use in fights also had lower mechanical advantages, indicating a trade-off between sexual weaponry and jaw leverage.[4]

Named in honor of the senior author’s father, Samuel Albert, who accompanied his son on an electric-fish collecting trip to Peru, and purchased type specimens from a fish market near Iquitos when he recognized that they differed from all the other electric fishes they had been collecting by the prominent elongate jaws of mature males.[5]


References

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  1. ^ Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel, eds. (April 2024). "Compsaraia samueli". FishBase.
  2. ^ Albert, James S.; Crampton, William G. R. (2009). "A new species of electric knifefish, genus Compsaraia (Gymnotiformes: Apteronotidae) from the Amazon River, with extreme sexual dimorphism in snout and jaw length". Systematics and Biodiversity. 7 (1): 81–92. doi:10.1017/S1477200008002934. S2CID 53333824.
  3. ^ Triefenbach, Frank A.; Zakon, Harold H. (2008). "Changes in signalling during agonistic interactions between male weakly electric knifefish, Apteronotus leptorhynchus". Animal Behaviour. 75 (4): 1263–1272. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.09.027. S2CID 53155927.
  4. ^ Evans, Kory M.; Maxwell, J. Bernt; Kolmann, Matthew A.; Ford, Kassandra L.; Albert, James S. (2019). "Why the long face? Static allometry in the sexually dimorphic phenotypes of Neotropical electric fishes". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 186 (3): 633–649. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zly076.
  5. ^ Scharpf, Christopher; Lazara, Kenneth J. (22 September 2018). "Order GYMNOTIFORMES (Neotropical Knifefishes)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 7 March 2021.