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Henschel et al 2024 (2)

Colouration: Body translucent with vertebrae visible through body wall. Bluish line dorsal to vertebral column corresponding to dorsal nerve tube. Reddish gills and heart. Gut empty, with few flecks of iridescent fat deposits on last quarter of gut. Head clear and yellowish with black eyes. Brain visible through skull foramen and transparent skin as dark purple mass behind eyes. Patches of melanophores on tip of snout and just anterior to eye, (Henschel et al 2024). Habitat: Known from the Upper Orinoco River main channel in southern Venezuela, the Aguarico River main channel in eastern Ecuador near the Peruvian border, and the Madeira River. Diet: Found to exhibit parasitic traits. Forages both during the day and at night seeks the gill chambers of larger fishes, especially catfishes. Enters and leaves the gill chamber during the host's ventilating movements: feeds on blood drawn from the gill filaments and may stay in the gill chamber for 1-3 min; when gorged with blood, moves to the bottom and buries itself in the sand. A single large catfish tethered on the river bank may feed thousand of these parasitic catfish over a period of up to 6 hours. Large numbers of this fish may kill fishes tethered by fishermen. Etymology: The genus name of Paravandellia: para-, near, i.e., considered between Stegophilus and Vandellia (yet described as having the general appearance of the former). The species epithet brooksi, honours American artist David Ian Brooks, born 14 December 1975, for providing critical support to N.K.L. during eight ichthyological expeditions to Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela from 2005 to 2023. Without David's camaraderie and assistance with funding and fieldwork, many thousands of fish specimens, tissues, photos, and associated data could never have been collected. The holotype of Paravandellia brooksi was collected just two weeks before N.K.L. and Brooks first met on a bedrock island in the Casiquiare Canal, (Henschel et al 2024).

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Trichomycteridae

South America: Known from the Upper Orinoco River main channel in southern Venezuela, the Aguarico River main channel in eastern Ecuador near the Peruvian border, and the Madeira River.

3.0cm. (1¼ins)

25-28°c (77-83°f.)

6.0-7.0.

Elisabeth Henschel, Jonathan N. Baskin, Rupert Collins, and Nathan K. Lujan "A Revised Diagnosis of the Blood-Feeding Candiru Genus Paravandellia (Siluriformes: Trichomycteridae: Vandelliinae) with Descriptions of Three New Species," American Museum Novitates 2024(4024), 1-36, (28 June 2024).
Fish in the News 2024.