Pachypops is a small genus of freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the familySciaenidae, the drums and croakers. The three recognised species in the genus are found in South America.
Pachypops combines pachy, maiming “thick”, with ops, which means “eye”. Gill did not state why he gave the genus this name but it may be an allusion to the large eyes or swollen suborbital area of the type species.[5]
Species
Pachypops contains three described, recognised species:[6]
Pachypops croakers share the following characteristics: they have a mouth set below the snout, there are three barbels on the chin, there are two long rearwards extending appendages on the swim bladder, each branching off from a short forward pointing appendage and they have an elongated haemal spine on the first caudal vertebra.[7] The smallest species in the genus is P. pignaeus which has a maximum published standard length of 5.6 cm (2.2 in) while the largest is P. fourcroi with a maximum published total length of 25 cm (9.8 in).[6]
Distribution
Pachypops croakers are found in the rivers of tropical South America which drain into the Western Atlantic Ocean from the Orinoco east through the rivers of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana to the Amazon basin of Brazil.[7]
^ abLilian Casatti (2002). "Taxonomy of the South American genus Pachypops Gill 1861 (Teleostei: Perciformes: Sciaenidae), with the description of a new species". Zootaxa. 26 (1): 1–20. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.26.1.1.