Doradidae

Horácio Higuchi, José L. O. Birindelli, Leandro M. Sousa & Heraldo A. Britski, 2007, Merodoras nheco, new genus and species from Rio Paraguay basin, Brazil (Siluriformes, Doradidae), and nomination of the new subfamily Astrodoradinae., Zootaxa 1446, pp. 31-42 : 32

[[ Family Doradidae ]]

Doradidae is a monophyletic catfish family easily recognized by the well-developed nuchal shield preceding the dorsal fin, and the lateral line with well-developed ossifications as midlateral scutes with median retrorse thorns. In one of his last papers, Carl H. Eigenmann (1925) presented a revision of the family, wherein he classified all known species into 26 valid genera and provided descriptions of various anatomical features of the family. Subsequent work on the family included relatively isolated descriptions of new genera and species, and a revision of doradid species from Venezuela by Fernández-Yépez (1968). Higuchi (1992) completed a comprehensive morphological study of Doradidae that helped resolve many taxonomic problems and placed the genera in a phylogenetic context. The results of Higuchi’s cladistic analysis of intergeneric relationships, including the synapomorphies for his proposed clades, are reproduced in de Pinna (1998). Most recently, Sabaj and Ferraris (2003) further refined the taxonomy of Doradidae by compiling a checklist of all nominal species (127) and genera (41) of doradids from which they recognized 72 species and 30 genera as valid. Five species were subsequently added by Sousa and Rapp Py-Daniel (2005), and Sabaj (2005).