Siphamia Explained

Siphamia is a genus of cardinalfishes native to the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Several of these species are commensal with various species of sea urchins.

Siphamia minor, a dwarf otolith-based species from the Burdigalian (Miocene) of southwestern India is the only fossil record for this genus.^[1]

Species

The 24 recognized species in this genus are:^[2]

• Siphamia arabica Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012
• Siphamia argentea Lachner, 1953 (silver siphonfish)
• Siphamia brevilux Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012 (shortlight siphonfish)
• Siphamia cephalotes (Castelnau, 1875) (Wood's siphonfish)
• Siphamia corallicola G. R. Allen, 1993 (coral siphonfish)
• Siphamia cuneiceps Whitley, 1941 (wedgehead siphonfish)
• Siphamia cyanophthalma Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012 (blue-eye siphonfish)
• Siphamia elongata Lachner, 1953 (elongated siphonfish)
• Siphamia fistulosa (M. C. W. Weber, 1909) (Fistulose cardinalfish)
• Siphamia fraseri Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012
• Siphamia fuscolineata Lachner, 1953 (crown-of-thorns cardinalfish)
• Siphamia goreni Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012
• Siphamia guttulatus (Alleyne & W. J. Macleay, 1877) (speckled siphonfish)
• Siphamia jebbi G. R. Allen, 1993 (Jebb's siphonfish)
• Siphamia majimai Matsubara & Iwai, 1958 (striped siphonfish)
• Siphamia mossambica J. L. B. Smith, 1955 (sea urchin cardinal)
• Siphamia papuensis Gon, G. R. Allen, Erdmann & Gouws, 2014 (Papuan siphonfish) ^[3]
• Siphamia randalli Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012
• Siphamia roseigaster (E. P. Ramsay & J. D. Ogilby, 1887) (pink-breasted siphonfish)
• Siphamia senoui Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012
• Siphamia spinicola Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012 (reef siphonfish)
• Siphamia stenotes Gon & G. R. Allen, 2012 (narrow-lined siphonfish)
• Siphamia tubifer M. C. W. Weber, 1909 (tubifer cardinalfish)
• Siphamia tubulata (M. C. W. Weber, 1909) (siphonfish)
• Siphamia minor Carolin, Bajpai, Maurya & Schwarzhans, 2022 (otolith-based fossil species)

Notes and References

1. Nora . Carolin . Bajpai . Sunil . Maurya . Abhayanand Singh . Schwarzhans . Werner . 2022 . New perspectives on late Tethyan Neogene biodiversity development of fishes based on Miocene (~ 17 Ma) otoliths from southwestern India . PalZ . 97 . 43–80 . 10.1007/s12542-022-00623-9. 249184395 .
2. Mabuchi, K., Fraser, T.H., Song, H., Azuma, Y. & Nishida, M. (2014): Revision of the systematics of the cardinalfishes (Percomorpha: Apogonidae) based on molecular analyses and comparative reevaluation of morphological characters. Zootaxa, 3846 (2): 151–203.
3. Gon, O., Allen, G.R., Erdmann, M.V. & Gouws, G. (2014): A new species of the cardinalfish genus Siphamia (Perciformes, Apogonidae) from West Papua, Indonesia. Zootaxa, 3881 (4): 328–340.