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Compsaraia samueli

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Species of fish

Compsaraia samueli
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Gymnotiformes
Family: Apteronotidae
Genus: Compsaraia
Species: C. samueli
Binomial name
Compsaraia samueli
(Albert & Crampton, 2009)

Compsaraia samueli, the pelican knifefish, is a species of apteronotid electric fish from the western Amazon basin of Brazil and Peru. It exhibits pronounced sexual dimorphism in which mature males develop extremely elongated snouts and oral jaws. This phenotype is found in several other apteronotid species and is used in agonistic jaw-locking behaviors between males.

A study comparing skull shape and jaw-closing performance in males and females of Compsaraia samueli suggested that males with elongated faces for use in fights also had lower mechanical advantages, indicating a trade-off between sexual weaponry and jaw leverage.

Named in honor of the senior author’s father, Samuel Albert, who accompanied his son on an electric-fish collecting trip to Peru, and purchased type specimens from a fish market near Iquitos when he recognized that they differed from all the other electric fishes they had been collecting by the prominent elongate jaws of mature males.


References

  1. Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel, eds. (April 2024). "Compsaraia samueli". FishBase.
  2. Albert, James S.; Crampton, William G. R. (2009). "A new species of electric knifefish, genus Compsaraia (Gymnotiformes: Apteronotidae) from the Amazon River, with extreme sexual dimorphism in snout and jaw length". Systematics and Biodiversity. 7 (1): 81–92. doi:10.1017/S1477200008002934. S2CID 53333824.
  3. Triefenbach, Frank A.; Zakon, Harold H. (2008). "Changes in signalling during agonistic interactions between male weakly electric knifefish, Apteronotus leptorhynchus". Animal Behaviour. 75 (4): 1263–1272. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.09.027. S2CID 53155927.
  4. Evans, Kory M.; Maxwell, J. Bernt; Kolmann, Matthew A.; Ford, Kassandra L.; Albert, James S. (2019). "Why the long face? Static allometry in the sexually dimorphic phenotypes of Neotropical electric fishes". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 186 (3): 633–649. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zly076.
  5. Scharpf, Christopher; Lazara, Kenneth J. (22 September 2018). "Order GYMNOTIFORMES (Neotropical Knifefishes)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
Taxon identifiers
Compsaraia samueli


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