Eubleekeria Fowler, 1904

Chakrabarty, Prosanta & Sparks, John S., 2008, Diagnoses for Leiognathus Lacepède 1802, Equula Cuvier 1815, Equulites Fowler 1904, Eubleekeria Fowler 1904, and a New Ponyfish Genus (Teleostei: Leiognathidae), American Museum Novitates 3623 (1), pp. 1-12 : 6

Eubleekeria Fowler, 1904

Figure 5

Leiognathus splendens complex: Kimura et al., 2005. Clade H: Sparks et al., 2005.

TYPE SPECIES: Eubleekeria splendens ( Cuvier, 1829) .

OTHER INCLUDED SPECIES: Eubleekeria jonesi ( James, 1971) . E. kupanensis ( Kimura and Peristiwady, 2005, in Kimura et al., 2005), E. rapsoni ( Munro, 1964) .

DIAGNOSIS: Members of Eubleekeria are distinguished from all other leiognathids by the combination of a vermiculate dorsal flank pigmentation pattern, black markings in the membrane of the spinous dorsal fin, and the presence of chest scales.

ETYMOLOGY: Eubleekeria was named in honor of the prolific Dutch ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker by Fowler (1904: 516). Russell (1803) illustrated the fish that was later described as Equula splendens Cuvier, 1829 (who provided the binomial in a footnote referring to Russell’s illustration), providing it with the common name ‘‘Goomorah Karah’’.

REMARKS: Eubleekeria was described by Fowler (1904: 516–517) as a subgenus of Leiognathus to encompass Leiognathus splendens ( Cuvier, 1829) and Leiognathus spilotus Fowler, 1904 , which was later synonymized with L. splendens by Kimura et al. (2005). Sparks et al. (2005: fig. 1) recovered ‘‘Clade H’’ (herein Eubleekeria ) as the sister group to Photopectoralis . Herein we elevate this monophyletic assemblage to generic rank. Members of Eubleekeria are sexually dimorphic with respect to light-organ volume, with those of males being considerably larger than similarly sized conspecific females. Kimura et al. (2005) presented the following combination of characters in their diagnosis of this group: body deep (42–60% SL); mouth protracting ventrally; jaw teeth slender, minute; lower margin of orbit above the horizontal through the gape when mouth closed; breast almost completely scaled; lateral line complete; dark blotch on top of spinous dorsal fin. Unfortunately, all of these features are more broadly distributed within Leiognathidae , and provide no diagnostic information for Eubleekeria . In addition, we find the mouth to protract only slightly downward in these species, as opposed to strongly downward as is the case with most other members of the family. The shape of the snout in Eubleekeria also appears to be unique, owing to the combination of a shorter snout length than in most leiognathids (25–30% of HL; similar to Photopectoralis bindus , and members of Gazza and Secutor ) and an orbital ridge that protrudes strongly dorsally. The four species of Eubleekeria can be distinguished by squamation pattern (on the cheek, chest, and predorsal region) as well as the extent of the dark blotch on the spinous portion of the dorsal-fin membrane (see Kimura et al., 2005, for diagnostic species-level features).