Chlopsis

Kenneth A. Tighe & John E. McCosker, 2003, Two new species of the genus Chlopsis (Teleostei: Anguilliformes: Chlopsidae) from the Southwestern Pacific., Zootaxa 236, pp. 1-8 : 1-2

The most recent reviews of the genus Chlopsis were those of Lavenberg (1988) and Smith (1989).

Lavenberg (1988) recognized four species from the eastern Pacific: C. apterus (Beebe and Tee Van , 1938), C. bicollaris (Myers and Wade , 1941), C. kazuko Lavenberg , 1988 and C. longidens (Garman , 1899). Although C. longidens is based on a leptocephalus and is probably the larva of one of the other species, Lavenberg (1988) did not conclusively identify this species with an adult. However, he did indicate that it was likely that it was the larva of C. bicollaris . Smith (1989) recognized six species: C. apterus , C. bicollaris and C. kazuko from the eastern tropical Pacific, C. olokun (Robins and Robins , 1966) from the eastern tropical Atlantic, C. bicolor Rafinesque , 1810 from the Mediterranean and Atlantic and C. dentatus (Seale , 1917) from the tropical western Atlantic, western Indian and western Pacific Oceans.

Recent collecting in the Central Pacific by ORSTROM yielded three specimens of two undescribed species of this family. One additional specimen of one of these species from the Australian Museum had been previously misidentified as C. dentatus and was the basis for including the western Pacific Ocean in the distribution of that species by Smith (1989).