ONE NEW RECORD GENUS AND THREE NEW RECORD SPECIES OF SNAKE EELS(OPHICHTHIDAE: ANGUILLIFORMES)FROM TAIWAN

摘要

The tropical and subtropical eel family Ophichthidae are the most diverse Anguilliformes fishes which occupy a variety of marine habitats such as reefs, sand and mud substrates. In Taiwan, we can often collect them from the capture of bottom-trawl fishery. In this study, we added two new recorded species Ophichthus machidai and O. obtusus of ophichthid eels collected from Da-xi fish market by comparing their morphological measurements, vertebral counts and head pores with the other six species of the genus Ophichthus: 0. apicalis, O. aphotistos, O. asakusae, O. erabo, O. tsuchidae, 0. urolophus. We also obtained a unique specimen from Tong-gang fish market and we identified this specimen as Skythrenchelys zabra, it would be the new recorded genus and species in Taiwan as well.