Laboratory of Functional and Evolutionary Morphology, Freshwater and Oceanic Science Unit of Research, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
Fish Passage Center, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2020 Oct 29;15(10):e0241316. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241316. eCollection 2020.
The genus Pygocentrus contains three valid piranha species (P. cariba, P. nattereri and P. piraya) that are allopatric in tropical and subtropical freshwater environments of South America. This study uses acoustic features to differentiate the three species. Sounds were recorded in P. cariba, two populations of P. nattereri (red- and yellow-bellied) and P. piraya; providing sound description for the first time in P. cariba and P. piraya. Calls of P. cariba were distinct from all the other studied populations. Red- and yellow-bellied P. nattereri calls were different from each other but yellow-bellied P. nattereri calls were similar to those of P. piraya. These observations can be explained by considering that the studied specimens of yellow-bellied P. nattereri have been wrongly identified and are actually a sub-population of P. piraya. Morphological examinations and recent fish field recordings in the Araguari River strongly support our hypothesis. This study shows for the first time that sounds can be used to discover identification errors in the teleost taxa.
该属包含三种有效的食人鲳物种（Pygocentrus cariba、P. nattereri 和 P. piraya），它们在南美洲的热带和亚热带淡水环境中是异域分布的。本研究利用声学特征来区分这三个物种。在 P. cariba、两种 P. nattereri（红腹和黄腹）和 P. piraya 种群中记录了声音，这是首次对 P. cariba 和 P. piraya 进行声音描述。P. cariba 的叫声与所有其他研究的种群都不同。红腹和黄腹 P. nattereri 的叫声彼此不同，但黄腹 P. nattereri 的叫声与 P. piraya 的叫声相似。这些观察结果可以通过考虑到研究的黄腹 P. nattereri 标本被错误地鉴定，实际上是 P. piraya 的一个亚种群来解释。形态学检查和最近在阿拉瓜里河的鱼类实地记录强烈支持我们的假设。本研究首次表明，声音可用于发现硬骨鱼类分类群中的鉴定错误。
