Allocareproctus Pitruk & Fedorov

James Wilder Orr & Morgan Scott Busby, 2006, Revision of the snailfish genus Allocareproctus Pitruk & Fedorov (Teleostei: Liparidae), with descriptions of four new species from the Aleutian Islands., Zootaxa 1173, pp. 1-37 : 33-35

[[ Genus Allocareproctus Pitruk & Fedorov ]]

Statistical analyses

Univariate analyses

Several significant differences were found among species using ANOVA for meristic characters and ANCOVA for morphometric characters (Table 3). Dorsal-, anal-, and pectoral-fin ray, caudal vertebrae, and gill raker counts were all significantly different among species tested. Except for a significant difference in numbers of gill rakers with A. kallaion , which also differed from all species, A. tanix did not differ significantly from other species in any other meristic character. Head length, body depth at anal-fin orgin, orbit length, predorsal length, pelvic disk to anus length, and the distance of connections of anal-fin and dorsal-fin membranes to the caudal fin differed significantly. Allocareproctus tanix also differed from A. kallaion in all these characters, as well as in some characters that were nonsignificant in comparison with other species, including suborbital depth to oral cleft and mandible, snout and mandible to pelvic disk length, and pelvic-disk length and width. In addition, suborbital depth to mandible was significantly different between A. tanix and A. unangas .

Principal component analysis

In the meristic PCA of all species (Fig. 13), all individuals formed narrowly overlapping species clusters. Principal component 1 accounted for 38.8% of the variance, with anal-fin rays, dorsal-fin rays, and caudal vertebrae loading most heavily (Table 4), widely separating A. unangas from A. ungak , while other species were intermediate. Accounting for 33.0% of the variance, PC2 was most heavily loaded with abdominal vertebrae, dorsal-fin rays, and gill rakers (Table 4), separating A. kallaion from all other species and providing some separation of most individuals of A. jordani from other species.