Trachyscorpia Ginsburg
Creators: name: Hiroyuki Motomura
name: Peter R. Last
name: Gordon K. Yearsley
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2007
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Scorpaeniformes
Sebastidae
Trachyscorpia

description: [[Genus Trachyscorpia Ginsburg]]
Species of the scorpionfish genus Trachyscorpia are deepwater, bottom dwelling, relatively large fishes, attaining at least 35 cm standard length. The genus was originally proposed for Scorpaena cristulata Goode & Bean, 1896 by Ginsburg (1953) who simultaneously included Scorpaena echinata Koehler, 1896 in the genus. Subsequently, Eschmeyer (1969) added Scorpaena capensis Gilchrist & von Bonde, 1924 to Trachyscorpia. Eschmeyer (1969) tentatively regarded T. cristulata and T. echinata as the subspecies, T. cristulata cristulata and T. c. echinata. He also separated the species of Trachyscorpia into two subgenera, Trachyscorpia (type species: T. cristulata) and Mesoscorpia (T. capensis), the latter being his new subgenus.
The genus Trachyscorpia is characterized by the following combination of characters: occiput flat, lacking pit; first preopercular spine largest; head bones strongly ossified; suborbital ridge well developed, with usually 5 or more spines; palatine teeth present; dorsal-fin spines 12 or 13; vertebrae 25 or 26; pectoral-fin margin bilobed; lateral line complete, extending onto caudal-fin base; and scales on the body ctenoid (Eschmeyer, 1969; this study).
Trachyscorpia capensis was described as a new species of Scorpaena from the west coast of South Africa from three specimens (whereabouts of the syntypes currently unknown; e.g., Eschmeyer, 1998). Although the name T. capensis has been used in many publications since Eschmeyer (1969) (e.g., Eschmeyer, 1986; Ishida, 1990; Pakhorukov, 2001), T. capensis is permanently invalid because it was preoccupied by Scorpaena capensis Gmelin, 1789, which is currently recognized as Sebastes capensis. Whitley (1970) proposed a replacement name, T. eschmeyeri, for Gilchrist and von Bonde’s Scorpaena capensis.
The species of Trachyscorpia from Australasian waters (mostly reported as T. capensis) has been recognized as containing two sympatric morphotypes by several ichthyologists for a long time (e.g., Daley et al, 1997; A. Stewart and C. Paulin, pers. comm., 2004). Our further examinations of specimens from the region showed that the two morphotypes represent T. (M.) eschmeyeri and a distinct new species of Trachyscorpia (Mesoscorpia). In addition, during examination of the Australasian specimens, another new species was found at the Australian National Fish Collection (CSIRO). This new species was collected from the South-West Indian Ridge, southwestern Indian Ocean (ca. 1,700 km south of the southern tip of Madagascar), and resembles the Australasian new species rather than T. (M.) eschmeyeri. The two new species are herein described in detail, along with a redefinition of the subgenus Mesoscorpia.
description: Published as part of Hiroyuki Motomura, Peter R. Last & Gordon K. Yearsley, 2007, Two new species of the scorpionfish genus Trachyscorpia (Sebastidae: Sebastolobinae) from the southern Indo-West Pacific, with comments on the distribution of T. eschmeyeri., pp. 19-34 in Zootaxa 1466 on pages 19-20