RESEARCH ARTICLE
Pseudojuloides zeus, a new deep-reef wrasse (Perciformes: Labridae)
from Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean
Benjamin C. Victor &
Jason M.B. Edward
Abstract
The new species, Pseudojuloides
zeus, is described from two specimens obtained
from Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands and Palau
in Micronesia, western Pacific Ocean. The species
is distinguished by two prominent jagged blue stripes
along the body and a dark spot at the base of the
mid-dorsal fin. P. zeus is a rarely seen fish,
found only on particularly deep reefs and, thus far,
from only two locations. The single paratype from
Palau was collected at about 80m during the 1997 ‘Twilight
Zone’ Expedition by the Bishop Museum and, since then,
a series of specimens have been collected for the
aquarium trade from similarly deep reefs at Majuro.
The nearest relative is P. mesostigma, from
Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Vanuatu, Tonga, and
the Great Barrier Reef, which shares the very slender
body and has a dark area on the mid-dorsal fin and
body, but does not have the distinctive two blue stripes.
The barcode mtDNA COI sequence of the new species
is 5.3% different from the sequence of P. mesostigma
(minimum interspecific distance, K2P model). A neighbor-joining
tree and genetic distance matrix is presented for
11 of the 13 known species in the genus Pseudojuloides.
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CITATION:
Victor, B.C. & Edward,
J.M.B. (2015) Pseudojuloides zeus, a new deep-reef
wrasse (Perciformes: Labridae) from Micronesia in
the western Pacific Ocean. Journal of the Ocean
Science Foundation, 15, 41-52.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1001006
publication date: 29 May
2015
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