On November 30, a press conference on promoting biodiversity conservation in Lishui City, Zhejiang Province was held in the municipal administrative center. At the meeting, it was announced that a new species of freshwater fish, Microphysogobio oujiangensis, had been discovered in Lishui City, and the white paper “Biodiversity Conservation in Lishui” was officially released, which is also the first white paper on biodiversity conservation at the prefecture and city level in China.
Name: Oujiang small bladder
Scientific name: Microphysogobio oujiangensis
Discovered: 2021
Found in: Panxi, Jinyun County
In 2021, investigators from the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences collected a batch of small bladder specimens in Panxi, Jinyun County, and found that they were different from other small bladder species in the vicinity. After a detailed morphological comparison and molecular phylogenetic analysis, it was determined that this was a new species. Since it is known to be distributed only in the Oujiang River basin, it was named after the Oujiang River.
The Oujiang small bladder is a small fish, the total length of which generally does not exceed 10cm; It usually inhabits the middle and lower reaches of rivers, hiding in deeper waters during the day and shallower waters in the evening to feed, generally feeding on algae and small benthic animals.
Since December 2019, the Lishui Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment has organized a background survey of biodiversity in the whole area, and a total of 134 species of native fish have been found in the investigation. In 2021, through the implementation of the Lishui Biodiversity Conservation Project of the integrated protection and restoration project of landscapes, waters, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand in the headwaters of the Oujiang River, the biodiversity conservation project of Lishui will be further promoted. The discovery of a new species of the Oujiang bladder fully demonstrates the excellent aquatic ecological environment and rich aquatic biodiversity in the Oujiang River Basin.
The news was first reported by Sciencenet.
