Research Training Program

Mauricio Torres Mejia
Universidad Industrial de Santander
Bucaramanga, Colombia

Richard Vari, Ph.D.
Supervising Scientist
Vertebrate Zoology - Fishes

"To be successful a scientist should be brilliant, or rich, or obsessed, or in love of its job, or a combination of this features. But always lucky."

A new Creagrutus (Teleostei: Characiformes) from Colombia and its phylogenetic position within the genus

The Río Magdalena system is the best explored for fishes in Colombia, both by fishermen and researchers. Nevertheless, we discovered in that basin a new species of fish. This species belongs to the genus Creagrutus, a group of small sized fishes that inhabits piedmont rivers of South America and Panamá. In order to confirm that these samples represented a new species we examined various external characteristics such as the number of lateral line scales and fin rays, and took measurements of the distance between various parts of the body. We also examined some internal characters such as bones and cartilages using specimens cleared via a chemical process, and muscles by way of dissections. This information was used to determine the relationships of the new species relative to previously known species of the genus Creagrutus. This study contributes to our knowledge of the still poorly known Neotropical freshwater fish fauna, which sometimes is unknown but already exploded as food, like the case of this new species of Creagrutus.

This research was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Fund.

Letter of gratitude