RESEARCH ARTICLE
A new pygmy hogfish (Labridae: Bodianus) of the subgenus Trochocopus from the tropical southern Pacific Ocean
Martin F. Gomon & Fenton
Walsh
Abstract
Bodianus bennetti,
n. sp. is described from a single specimen collected
at 97 m depth at Flora Reef in the Coral Sea off the
Queensland coast of Australia, as well as from images
of individuals from Moorea, French Polynesia. The
new hogfish is a member of the subgenus Trochocopus,
whose members frequent deep-reef habitats and are
amongst the smallest species of this speciose labrid
genus. The new species closely resembles two red-striped
species, the western Pacific B. neopercularis
and the Indian Ocean B. opercularis, differing
from them in consistently lacking a continuation of
the ventral red body stripe onto the head. The species
was first noticed by the prominent lemon-yellow rather
than white intervening stripes (between the red stripes)
in the first specimens, although subsequently the
stripe color was observed to vary from lemon-yellow
to white in the same individual. The mtDNA COI barcode
sequence of the new species is compared to one of
these two closely related species and five additional
members of the subgenus, revealing the new species
to be 4.3% divergent (K2P and uncorrected pairwise)
from its nearest-neighbor sequence, B. neopercularis
(based on a specimen from Micronesia).
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CITATION:
Gomon, M.F. & Walsh,
F. (2016) A new pygmy hogfish (Labridae: Bodianus)
of the subgenus Trochocopus from the tropical
southern Pacific Ocean. Journal of the Ocean Science
Foundation, 23, 12-20.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.161604
publication date: 18 October
2016
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