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 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Gymnotiformes |
| Family: | Apteronotidae |
| Genus: | Compsaraia |
| Species: | C. samueli
|
| Binomial name | |
| Compsaraia samueli | |
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
edit- ^ Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel, eds. (April 2024). "Compsaraia samueli". FishBase.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
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