WCS 3-Sentence Science

Leaffish Branching Out

December 13, 2019

CREDIT: GUSTAVO ALVAREZ/WCS

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Bolivia program on the discovery of new locations associated with the Amazon leaffish.

1. The Amazon leaffish, Monocirrhus polyacanthus, belongs to a family of small fishes found in coastal drainages of northeastern South America, the Rio Negro basin and distributed throughout the Amazon and the Orinoco.
2. The species was previously known from three localities in Bolivia.
3. Here, researchers present new occurrence locations in the Madre de Dios River watershed in northern Bolivia. In addition, we conducted a review of the currently known distribution in South America, including the habitats in which leaf fish were captured.

Study and Journal: “New records of the leaffish Monocirrhus polyacanthus (Perciformes, Polycentridae) in the upper Madeira River basin, Bolivia” from Ecología en Bolivia
WCS Co-Author(s): Gustavo Alvarez, Responsible Community Wildlife Management Projects; Guido Miranda, Coordinador Manejo Vida Silvestre, WCS Bolivia Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.