Yirrkala misolensis ( Günther, 1872 )

Hibino, Yusuke & Ho, Hsuan-Ching, 2024, Species of the snake eel genus Yirrkala Whitley, 1940 from Taiwan, with descriptions of a new species and two new records (Anguilliformes, Ophichthidae), ZooKeys 1220, pp. 45-62 : 45-62

Yirrkala misolensis ( Günther, 1872)

Ophichthys misolensis Günther, 1872: 426 (type locality: Misool [Misol] Island, Irian Jaya, Indonesia).

Dalophis misolensis : Jordan and Seale 1906: 194 (Misol).

Yirrkala misolensis : McCosker 1977: 69 (listed); Smith and McCosker 1999: 1669 (listed); McCosker et al. 2006: 277 (listed, Queensland, Australia); Menes et al. 2010: 98 (Bago River, Negros and Panay, Philippines); McCosker 2014: 339 (listed, Philippines); Ho et al. 2015: 177 ( Taiwan, listed as a new record); Motomura et al. 2017: 35 (Panay, Philippines); Hibino 2019: 154 (Dong-gang, Taiwan); Hibino et al. 2021: 21 (Okinawa, Japan); Chiu et al. 2022: 117 ( Taiwan, redescription); McCosker 2022: 136 ( Maldives, but photographed specimen collected from Taiwan).

Diagnosis.

An elongate species of Yirrkala with the following combination of characters: body pale to dark brown with mottled patterns from snout to anterior trunk; SO 1 + 3; dorsal-fin origin behind gill opening; lateral-line pores before anus 76–85; total vertebrae 165–180, MVF 10-77 - 173 ( Hibino et al. 2021; Chiu et al. 2022).

Distribution.

Indo-Pacific from India to Fiji, including Indonesia (holotype), north to Ryukyu Islands, Japan; specimens collected from Dong-gang, Ke-tzu-liao, southwestern part of Taiwan ( Chiu et al. 2022).

Remarks.

Ho et al. (2015) first listed this species from Taiwan with voucher specimens. Chiu et al. (2022) provided a detailed redescription and the results of DNA barcoding. It is notable that McCosker (2022) provided the MVF 12-75 - 168 and total vertebrae 166–169 which is slightly different from our observation. It is likely that the Y. misolensis from Taiwan may include different populations. Without an explanation, McCosker (2022) regarded Caecula maculata Klausewitz, 1964 (type locality: Nicobar Islands) as a junior synonym of Y. misolensis . However, we cannot make any judgment about this synonymy without examining specimens from the type locality of C. maculata . The correct catalog number of the holotype of Ophichthys misolensis is BMNH 1870.8. 31.112 (https://data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/56e711e6-c847-4f99-915a-6894bb5c5dea/resource/05ff2255-c38a-40c9-b657-4ccb55ab2feb/record/3103514), although Hibino et al. (2021) and Chiu et al. (2022) erred and gave the wrong catalogue number (Fig. 6 ).

Figures

Figure 6. Holotype of Ophichthys misolensis, BMNH 1870.8. 31.112, 280 mm TL A whole body B head and breast.