Saturday 5 March 2016

Neenchelys andamanensis: A new species of Worm Eel from the Andaman Sea.

Worm Eels of the genus Neenchelys are small burrowing Eels found in the Indian ans Pacific Oceans. There are currently about ten described species, with other undescribed species known in museum and university collections.

In a paper published in the journal Zootaxa on 24 December 2015, Yusuke Hibino of the Fisheries Research Laboratory at Mie University, Ukkrit Satapoomin of the Phuket Marine Biological Center and Seishi Kimura, also of the Fisheries Research Laboratory describe a new species of Worm Eel from the Andaman Sea.

The new species is named Neenchelys andamanensis, meaning 'from the Andaman'. It is described from a single specimen collected from a depth of between 520 and 531 m off the coast of Phucket in 1999, and held in the collection of the Phuket Marine Biological Center. The specimen is 336 mm in length, and is of uncertain sex. It can be differentiated from other species in the same genus by the number of ribs and tail vertebrae.

Neenchelys andamanensis, 336 mm TL, Andaman Sea. (A) position of anus, (D) origin of dorsal fin. Hibino et al. (2015).

See also...

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