MEADIA MINOR 2021 FOUND IN THE COASTAL WATERS OF VIET NAM

A new species of the cutthroat eel family was discovered of the coast of Quy Nhon in central Viet Nam. The small arrowtooth eel, so named because it is smaller than the two other species in this genus, is also diferent in that it has a trunk that is longer than its head, a relatively small gill opening and a pale complexion.

“I had returned to my hometown to celebrate Viet Nam’s independence in September of 2019, and went to a fshing port in Quy Nhon city for three days,” said Dr Vo Van Quang, Head of Department of Marine Vertebrates at the Institute of Oceanography in Viet Nam. “The goal of the trip was to collect marine eels and a few other fsh species. It was a very fruitful trip, in which I found 10 individuals of a species of eel that seemed to belong to a new group.

“I brought these back to the laboratory, and tried to determine what family they belonged to based on their characteristics. At frst, I thought they belonged to the family Chlopsidae (known as false morays), but then we talked to Dr Ho from the National Museum of Marine Biology and sent him specimens to compare with those in the museum’s collection. The results showed that these 10 specimens belong to the genus Meadia of the family Synaphobranchidae – cutthroat eels. It’s exciting because this is only the third species in this genus that has ever been discovered.”

While the species is similar to members of the Ilyophis genus, its pectoral fn is set low on its body and its gill opening is lower still, marking it out as related to M. abyssalis and M. roseni. It has a short blunt snout, is scaleless and is only about 300mm long.

Vo, V.Q., Ho, H.C., Dao, H.V. and Tran, H.H.T. (2021) A new arrowtooth eel of genus Meadia (Synaphobranchidae: Ilyophinae) from Vietnam, South China Sea. Zootaxa 4952(1). doi.org/10.11646/ zootaxa.4952.1.11