This has been a very big year for new fish species, both described and discovered. Normally we finish up each year with a ‘Top 10’ new species but 2015 was so well endowed with fish being inducted into the hall of Binomial Nomenclature, we could only narrow it down to 15.
As in previous years, the most well represented groups of fish with new species being officially described included wrasses with five entries, basslets with three entries, but the overwhelming ‘winner’ of the new species is race is undeniably the Gobiidae. There were more than 15 new species of marine gobies described this year alone, not even counting freshwater fish, although we only had time to post about the six most attractive ones.
It’s always nice to see new species of sharks and dartfish, and this year we were even treated to the official description of a famous pufferfish, one that made headlines for building underwater crop circles. As aquarists we still know of plenty of unknown fish and corals which have yet to have their day in the official annals of taxonomy, but we know next year will bring a fresh new crop of newly described species of reef fish.
Atelomycterus erdmanni Erdmann’s Catshark
Terelabrus dewapyle Yellow Stripe Candy Cane Hogfish
Navigobius vittatus Striped Navigobius
Plectranthias bennetti Bennet’s Plectranthias
Pseudojuloides zeus Zeus’s Pencil Wrasse
Cirrhilabrus marinda Marinda’s fairy wrasse
Trimma trioculatum Three-eyed Pygmy Goby
Trimma multiclitellum Multibar Pygmy Goby
Pseudocoris occidentalis Western Pseudocoris
Lubricogobius nanus Nano Slippery Goby
Luzonichthys seaveri Seaver’s Luzon Anthias
Chelidoperca santosi Santos’s Deepwater Basslet
Pseudojuloides polackorum Polacks’s Pencil Wrasse
Torquigener albomaculosus Circle Builder Pufferfish
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