Pisces, Aquidauana and Miranda drainages, upper Paraguay River basin, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

An inventory of the ichthyofauna of the Aquidauana and Miranda basins is presented. A total of 9,559 individuals of six orders, 21 families and 68 species were sampled in streams (n = 6), rivers (n = 2), and reservoirs (n = 5) during the dry and wet seasons. Streams and rivers were the sites with higher richness, with 97% of the total richness. On the other hand, the highest abundance was recorded for reservoirs, with homogeneous assemblages dominated by nektonic species. Structural heterogeneity and proximity to the mainstem seem to be the main factors influencing fish richness in streams. This study reports a high regional richness and reinforces the necessity for the preservation of the lotic environments of the Cerrado

Pisces, Siluriformes, Ictaluridae, Ictalurus punctatus (Rafinesque, 1818): first record in middle Paranapanema river reservoir, aquaculture and exotic species dispersion

This is the first report of Ictalurus punctatus in the middle Paranapanema river basin; the occurrence of this species may be associated with the expansion of pisciculture in cage farms in the Brazilian territory as a whole

A New Species of Hypostomus (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the Upper Rio Paraguay Basin, Brazil

A new small Loricariidae, Hypostomus careopinnatus, is described from the Rio Taquari drainage, upper Rio Paraguay basin, Mato Grosso, Brazil. The new species can be easily distinguished from all congeners, except Hypostomus kids, by the absence of adipose fin. Hypostomus careopinnatus is distinguished from H. levis mainly by the presence of slender bifid teeth, with mesial cusp large and rounded, and lateral cusp small and pointed (vs. spoon-shaped teeth). The new species described herein completely lacks the adipose fin and also lacks the median pre-adipose plates in almost all specimens examined. The absence of adipose fin is probably an independent acquisition for Hypostomus careopinnatus and Hypostomus levis.Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo [2009/11873-0, 2009/15075-0]Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) [306.988/2008-9]America Latina Logistica (ALL)Ferronorte S/ATetraplan Consultoria e Planejament

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016