Pseudancistrus kwinti

Pseudancistrus kwinti

Philip Willink, Jan Mol and Barry Chernoff name the new species Pseudancistrus kwinti after the Kwinti people that live along the Coppename River and traditionally fish the area in which the new species was discovered in a recent issue of the journal Zootaxa.

Pseudancistrus kwinti can be distinguished from congeners in having a combination of: dentary papillae absent, complete mid-dorsal plate row, colour pattern mottled or with bars, hypertrophied odontodes along the edge of the snout, and weakly evertible cheek plates.

The new species was collected in an area of clear water and swift current with a substrate of rubble, boulders and cracked bedrock.

For more information, see the paper: Willink, PW, JH Mol and B Chernoff (2010) A new species of suckermouth armored catfish, Pseudancistrus kwinti (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the Coppename River drainage, Central Suriname Nature Reserve, Suriname.


Currently, there are 18 recognized species distributed in northern South America, with the inclusion of the genera Lithoxancistrus,Guyanancistrus, the species formerly known as Hemiancistrus megacephalus, as well as the most recently described Pseudancistrus corantijniensis. There is no single morphological feature which distinguishes the group from related genera. Despite this, Pseudancistrus is generally recognized as amonophyletic group.