History

Costa, W.J.E.M. 2008. Catalog of aplocheiloid Killifishes of the World. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Ed., Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 51. (Acrolebias Costa, 2008 described as a subgenus of Austrolebias.)

Genus Acrolebias Costa, 2008 stat. nov.

Type-species: by original designation as Cynolebias carvalhoi Myers, 1947.

The genus name is in reference to its occurrence in higher altitudes. Summit, peak (from Greek: akron, top) and Lebias, another Cyprinodontiformes genus.

Diagnosis:

Acrolebias differs from all other genera of the Austrolebias genus group by unique male coloration consisting of golden body flanks with eight to nine purple-grey bars. Additionally, this genus can be identified by the following unique combination of characters: no contact organs on anal fin in male; bases of pelvic fins separated by small interspace; anal fin short in females; urogenital papillae not attached to anal fin; dorsal fin origin anterior to anal fin origin; 21 or 22 dorsal fin rays in males, 16–18 in females; 21or 22 anal fin rays in males, 16–18 in females; and 27–29 longitudinal series scales (Costa 2006a).

Differential diagnosis: The genus Acrolebias can be distinguished from all other genera of the Austrolebias genus group by having < 40 scales in the longitudinal series (vs. > 40 scales in Titanolebias); by the presence of scales in the preopercular region (vs. absent in Gymnolebias); by the basal and medial region of pectoral fins being non-hyaline in adult males (vs. hyaline in Amatolebias, Austrolebias and

Garcialebias); by the lack of contact organs on the anal fin of males (vs. present in Acantholebias and Cypholebias); by the rostral region scaled and vertically directed suborbital bar (vs. suborbital bar posteriorly directed and anterior region of head near rostral neuromasts without scales in Megalebias); by markings on the distal portion of the dorsal fin, if present, not fused (vs. present and fused in Argolebias); and by unpaired fins dark grey on males (vs. with bluish to greenish iridescences in Matilebias).

Literature:

Lanés, Volcan, Calviño, Nielsen, Duarte & Garcia, 2018: molecular and morpho-combined full revision of Austrolebias, with major reshuffling of components into subgenera, with subgenus Argolebias as primitive to all and a probably distinct bitypic genus, with 6 other subgenera, Acantholebias (valid), Acrolebias (probably valid), Austrolebias s.s. (valid), Gymnolebias (unstable), Cypholebias (unstable), Megalebias (valid), conservatively maintained {without new diagnoses} and 2 un-named subgenera.

Alonso F., G.E. Terán, W.S. Serra Alanís, P. Calviño, M.M. Montes, I.D. Carcía, J.A. Barneche, A. Almirón, L. Ciotek, P. Giorgis, J. Casciotta, 2023. From the mud to the tree: phylogeny of Austrolebias killifishes, new generic structure and description of a new species (Cyprinodontiformes: Rivulidae) Zool. Journ. of the Linnean Society, XX, 1-30, Fig. 15, Tab. 2.

See: Austrolebias group introduction page for comments.