Abstract
The rare congrid eel species Congrhynchus talabonoides Fowler, 1934 was described from three specimens collected in the Philippines during the Albatross expedition in 1908–1909. The only mention of the species in the literature since its description has been in a type catalog (Smith, 1994), an identification guide (Smith, 1999), and a checklist of the eels of Taiwan (Ho et al., 2015, where it was erroneously placed in the Muraenesocidae). The first author discovered the Taiwan specimen in 2009 during a visit to the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in Taiwan, the first new specimen reported since its description more than 100 years ago. Several specimens were recently collected in the Andaman Sea. Based on these new specimens and a re-examination of the original three type specimens, we provide a full redescription of the species below.
References
Fowler, H.W. (1934) Descriptions of new fishes obtained 1907 to 1910, chiefly in the Philippine Islands and adjacent seas. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 85 (for 1933), 233–367.
Ho, H.-C., Smith, D.G., McCosker, J.E., Hibino, Y., Loe, K.-H., Tighe, K.A. & Shao, K.-T. (2015) Annotated checklist of eels (orders Anguilliformes and Saccopharyngiformes) from Taiwan. Zootaxa, 4060 (1), 140–189.
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4060.1.16Smith, D.G. (1994) Catalog of type specimens of Recent fishes in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 6: Anguilliformes, Saccopharyngiformes, and Notacanthiformes (Teleostei: Elopomorpha). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 566, i–iii + 1–50.
https://doi.org/10.5479/si.00810282.566.1Smith, D.G. (1999) Congridae, Conger eels. In: Carpenter, K.E. & Niem, V.H. (Eds.), Species identification guide for fisheries purposes. The living marine resources of the western central Pacific. Batoid fishes, chimeras and bony fishes. Part 1. Elopidae to Linophrynidae. FAO, Rome, pp. 1680–1687.
Smith, D.G. & Kanazawa, R.H. (1977) Eight new species and a new genus of congrid eels from the western north Atlantic with redescriptions of Ariosoma analis, Hildebrandia guppyi, and Rhechias vicinalis. Bulletin of Marine Science, 27 (3), 530–543.