RESEARCH ARTICLE

Pseudojuloides labyrinthus, a new labrid fish (Teleostei: Labridae) from the western Indian Ocean

Benjamin C. Victor & Jason M.B. Edward

Abstract

The new labrid fish species, Pseudojuloides labyrinthus n. sp., is described from three specimens obtained via the aquarium trade from Kenya, in the western Indian Ocean. The species is similar in appearance to other Indo-Pacific Pseudojuloides in the P. severnsi complex, distinguished mainly by the markings of the terminal-phase male, which includes a maze of lines on the head and three thicker blue stripes along the rear body. Despite the similarity in appearance, the new species is 9.66% divergent in the sequence of the mtDNA barcode marker COI (minimum interspecific divergence, pairwise; 10.54% K2P distance) from its nearest relative, P. edwardi, also found in Kenya. A neighbor-joining tree and genetic distance matrix is presented for 12 of the 14 known species in the genus Pseudojuloides.