A new species of leaf fish, Nandus banshlaii (Perciformes: Nandidae) from West Bengal, India

Abstract

Nandus banshlaii, sp. nov. described from the Banshlai River of West Bengal. This species is distinguished from all its congeners in having a golden brown body in live and a combination of characters like longest head and snout length (44.28% SL and 35.58% HL respectively) and from its two Indian congeners in containing largest eye diameter (22.22% HL), longest pre-dorsal length (47.16% SL), shortest pectoral fin length (14.60% SL) and smallest dorsal fin base length (45.53% SL).Like all three congeners of Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basin of Gangetic delta it possess a dark spot on caudal peduncle. To differentiate the present species from other two Indian congeners of Nandus, N. nandus and N. andrewi, PCA and heatmap is performed and a key of all three species is also provided.