Characidae - Eretmobrycon festae (Boulenger, 1898) |
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| Left: Specimen from Guayas River drainage. Right: Specimen from lower Esmeraldas River drainage. Scale bar = 10 mm. |
| SOURCE FOR OCCURRENCE IN ECUADOR: This species is very common in the Guayas River drainage, Chone River, and Portoviejo River. There are many references for its occurrence in the area (e.g., Eigenmann, 1922; Eigenmann, 1929; Bohlke, 1958; Ovchynnyk, 1971; Gery, 1977; Glodek, 1978; Laaz et al., 2009; Laaz & Torres, 2010). |
| ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: Boulenger, G.A. 1898. Viaggio del Dr. Enrico Festa nell' Ecuador e regioni vicine. Poissons de l'Equateur. [Part I]. Bollettino dei Musei di Zoologia ed Anatomia Comparata della R. Universita di Torino 13(329):1-13. |
| TYPE SPECIMENS: |
| TAXONOMIC STATUS: Valid (Eschmeyer and Fricke, 2020). Formerly known as Astyanax festae. We follow Terán et al. (2020) in changing the genus to Eretmobrycon. |
| RANGE ECUADOR: Common in the Guayas River drainage, Chone River, and Portoviejo River (Eigenmann, 1922). Glodek (1978) also lists this species from the Esmeraldas and Santiago Rivers and Barriga (1994) lists this species from the Mira and Santiago Rivers in northwestern Ecuador. Aguirre and collaborators have collected this species in the Guayas River drainage (July 2008) and Esmeraldas River drainage (July 2014). Fishbase (as of June 16, 2012) and Barriga (1991) list this species as occurring in the Amazon drainage, however, this seems to be an error. The type locality in Boulenger (1898) is Vinces, which is in the Guayas River drainage in western Ecuador. Ortega and Vari (1986) also list this species from northwestern Peru, not in the Amazon basin in eastern Peru. It is very unlikely that the same species occurs on both sides of the Andes. |
| RANGE OUTSIDE OF ECUADOR: Tumbes region of northern Peru (Chirichigno, 1963; Ortega and Vari, 1986) and possibly the Patia River basin in Colmbia (Glodek, 1978). |
| COLLECTIONS IN ECUADOR: |
| MAXIMUM SIZE: 6.9 cm (Bohlke, 1958). |
| DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: E. festae an be distinguished from other tetras in southwestern Ecuador by its relatively deep body and the presence of two black blotches in the anterior part of the body (see picture above). More formally, it differs from other species by the following characters: second suborbital not in contact with the lower limb of the preopercle, complete lateral line, caudal-fin lobes lacking scales, premaxillary teeth biserial, frontal fontanel present, interorbital area somewhat convex, and two humeral spots present (Glodek, 1978). |
| ECOLOGY: This species is known in Ecuador as the "cachuela" and is a small, omnivorous tetra (Laaz et al, 2009).
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| ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE: This is not important food fish because of its small size. |
| CONSERVATION STATUS: NA. |
| LINK TO FISHBASE PAGE: Click here for link |
| SPECIES PROFILE CREATED BY: Enrique Laaz |
| SPECIES PROFILE CONTRIBUTORS: Windsor Aguirre |
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