Notarius Gill

Ricardo Betancur-R. & Arturo Acero P., 2004, Description of Notarius biffi n. sp. and redescription of N. insculptus (Jordan and Gilbert) (Siluriformes: Ariidae) from the eastern Pacific, with evidence of monophyly and limits of Notarius., Zootaxa 703, pp. 1-20 : 1

[[ Genus Notarius Gill ]]

The family Ariidae is a monophyletic group of siluriform fishes that inhabits marine, brackish, and freshwater environments, and is widespread over the world´s tropical and suptropical continental shelves. The taxonomy of American ariids is in a chaotic state, since many genera lack adequate definition and some valid species remain undescribed or are synonymized. The genus Arius Valenciennes has been widely used to include many western Atlantic (WA) and eastern Pacific (EP) species. However, Betancur-R. (2003) presented phylogenetic evidence based on morphology that demonstrated that the type species of the genus, Pimelodus arius Hamilton from the Indo-West Pacific, has little affinity with American ariid lineages. Although Betancur-R. (2003) did not include the type species of the genus Notarius Gill ( Arius grandicassis Valenciennes ) in his analysis, he proposed its provisional use to group at least 14 neotropical Arius species. Notarius was recently resurrected by Marceniuk and Ferraris (2003), but they included only four species in it.