| This is a
family of the order Siluriformes composed of about 36 genera and 160 species of freshwater fishes found in Costa Rica,
Panama and South America. They are usually found in headwater
streams, including high-altitude areas.
A number of genera are parasitic,
attacking gill tissue of larger fishes. One genus, Vandellia
(candiru) is known to enter the urethra of humans and other mammals
attracted by urine, causing serious harm.
They have a naked and elongate body. They
usually have two pairs of barbels on maxilla, but lack barbels on the chin
(Nelson
1994). The presence of barbels and nocturnal habits of some
species make them preadapted to the hypogean environment. Of the ca. 100-120
species of the genus Trichomycterus, three species/populations have
been found to display troglomorphic characters while other
non-troglomorphic, hypogean populations have been reported for the
Colombian Andes (Sket
1988) and two more for Brazil (Trajano
& Souza 1994,
Trajano 1997c).
In 2005 Fernández and Schaefer
reported a new species, Tichomycterus gorgona from a small island
off the Pacific coast of Colombia, with troglomorphic characters,
although this species was found in the epigean environment. |
|
1. Silvinichthys
bortayro Fernández and DePinna, 2005
2. Trichomycterus chaberti
Durand, 1968
3.
Trichomycterus conradi
(Eigenmann, 1912)
4.
Trichomycterus itacarambiensis
Trajano & de Pinna, 1996
6. Trichomycterus spelaeus
DoNascimiento, Villareal & Provenzano, 2001
7. Ituglanis passensis Fernández & Bichuette,
2002
|