Two new species of Psilorhynchus (Teleostei: Psilorhynchidae) from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Species of Psilorhynchus are small stream and river dwelling fishes that are currently known from India, Nepal, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. While once considered a relatively depauperate genus, several new species have been described over the past decade. This increase in the number of species has come from an increasing number of expeditions to areas poorly inventoried or never sampled before, museum holdings containing previously unrecognized species, and significant efforts by some scientists working on the group. The genus was once placed in the family Cyprinidae, one of the largest families of freshwater fishes, but was removed to its own family Psilorhynchidae based on phylogenetic relationships relative to other groups also placed in Cyprinidae. Recent research expeditions of the rivers and streams of India resulted in the discovery of two additional new species of Psilorhynchus. Herein, we describe two species, P. platydorsalis, from Bihar, and P. kuwana, from Uttar Pradesh, and compare them to other species of the genus.