Critically Endangered
Trichogenes claviger
Trichogenes claviger
Trichogenes claviger is a ray-finned fish in the family Trichomycteridae (order Siluriformes), recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
T. Claviger is a small fish. 18 collected specimens were between 16 and 51 mm (0.63 and 2.01 in) in standard length (measured from the snout to the end of the vertebral column). The pelvic fin has 5 or 6 rays. The dorsal fin is comparatively small and situated closer to the caudal fin than to the snout.
A small fish, T. Claviger is up to 51 mm (2.0 in) in length.
Range and habitat
T. Claviger is a local endemic of the Atlantic Forest, the second largest rainforest of the Americas, and one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. Originally, this forest covered 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres), mostly in Brazil but extending south into parts of Paraguay and Argentina. The species is only known from the Caetés forest, a remnant of the Atlantic Forest in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo.
A private nature reserve has since been established, allowing visitors to see the fish in its habitat. From 2011, the nonprofit organization SAVE Brasil pushed for a large public nature reserve in the Caetés forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
As with T. Longipinnis, the species is probably diurnal (active during the day). Among the aquatic prey, black fly larvae, that attach themselves near the water margin and close to the water surface, are more commonly consumed than chironomid larvae.
The opercular process in T. Claviger is the only known secondary sex characteristic in pencil catfishes, and might have evolved for sexual signaling. It is also used by the fish to climb up net walls when caught.
In crisis
When discovered, the rainforest in that it occurs was unprotected and threatened by deforestation. T. Claviger has been classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 2018. Since 2014, it is also listed as critically endangered in the Livro Vermelho, the Regional Red List of Brazil.
It is one of about 20 threatened freshwater fish species in Espírito Santo. The main threats are its extremely small range and habitat loss due to deforestation, as this species depends on forests.
Trichogenes claviger is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Trichogenes claviger, Wikidata item Q6418286. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
