Pachypops

Life-forms

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Cladus: Unikonta
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Cladus: Holozoa
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Superphylum: Deuterostomia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
Megaclassis: Osteichthyes
Superclassis/Classis: Actinopterygii
Classis/Subclassis: Actinopteri
Subclassis/Infraclassis: Neopterygii
Infraclassis: Teleostei
Megacohors: Osteoglossocephalai
Supercohors: Clupeocephala
Cohors: Euteleosteomorpha
Subcohors: Neoteleostei
Infracohors: Eurypterygia
Sectio: Ctenosquamata
Subsectio: Acanthomorphata
Divisio/Superordo: Acanthopterygii
Subdivisio: Percomorphaceae
Series: Eupercaria
Ordo: Perciformes
Subordo: Percoidei
Superfamilia: Percoidea

Familia: Sciaenidae
Genus: Pachypops
Species: P. fourcroi – P. pigmaeus – P. trifilis
Name

Pachypops Gill, 1861
References

Pachypops – Taxon details on Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).
Pachypops species list in FishBase,
Froese, R. & Pauly, D. (eds.) 2024. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication, www.fishbase.org, version 02/2024.
Casatti, L. 2002: Taxonomy of the South American genus Pachypops Gill 1861 (Teleostei: Perciformes: Sciaenidae), with the description of a new species. Zootaxa 26: 1–20. Abstract & excerpt Reference page.

Vernacular names

Pachypops is a small genus of freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Sciaenidae, the drums and croakers. The three recognised species in the genus are found in South America.
Taxonomy

Pachypops was first proposed as a genus in 1861 by the American biologist Theodore Gill with Micropogon trifilis designated as its type species, and only species.[1] Micropogon trifilis was originally described in 1849 by the German zoologists Johannes Peter Müller and Franz Hermann Troschel with its type locality given as British Guiana.[2] The genus Pachypops is included in the subfamily Pachyurinae by some workers,[3] but the 5th edition of Fishes of the World does not recognise subfamilies within the Sciaenidae, which it places in the order Acanthuriformes.[4]
Etymology

Pachypops combines pachy, maiming “thick”, with ops, which means “eye”. Gill did not state why he gave the genus this name but it may be an allusion to the large eyes or swollen suborbital area of the type species.[5]
Species

Pachypops contains three described, recognised species:[6]

Pachypops fourcroi Lacépède, 1802 (Guyana croaker)
Pachypops pigmaeus Casatti, 2002
Pachypops trifilis Müller & Troschel 1849

Characteristics

Pachypops croakers share the following characteristics: they have a mouth set below the snout, there are three barbels on the chin, there are two long rearwards extending appendages on the swim bladder, each branching off from a short forward pointing appendage and they have an elongated haemal spine on the first caudal vertebra.[7] The smallest species in the genus is P. pignaeus which has a maximum published standard length of 5.6 cm (2.2 in) while the largest is P. fourcroi with a maximum published total length of 25 cm (9.8 in).[6]
Distribution

Pachypops croakers are found in the rivers of tropical South America which drain into the Western Atlantic Ocean from the Orinoco east through the rivers of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana to the Amazon basin of Brazil.[7]
References

Eschmeyer, William N.; Fricke, Ron & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Genera in the family Sciaenidae". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
Eschmeyer, William N.; Fricke, Ron & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Species in the genus Pachypops". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
Kunio Sasaki (1989). "Phylogeny of the family Sciaenidae, with notes on its Zoogeography (Teleostei, Peciformes)" (PDF). Memoirs of the Faculty of Fishes Hokkaido University. 36 (1–2): 1–137.
J. S. Nelson; T. C. Grande; M. V. H. Wilson (2016). Fishes of the World (5th ed.). Wiley. pp. 497–502. ISBN 978-1-118-34233-6.
Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara, eds. (9 March 2023). "Series Eupercaria (Incertae sedis): Families Callanthidae, Centrogenyidae, Dinopercidae, Emmelichthyidae, Malacanthidae, Monodactylidae, Moronidae, Parascorpididae, Sciaenidae and Sillagidae". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2023). Species of Pachypops in FishBase. February 2023 version.
Lilian Casatti (2002). "Taxonomy of the South American genus Pachypops Gill 1861 (Teleostei: Perciformes: Sciaenidae), with the description of a new species". Zootaxa. 26 (1): 1–20. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.26.1.1.